Sustain II   Refrain
by MaybeAmanda
Summary: He could fix this.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Sustain II: Refrain (1/3)  
><strong>Authors:<strong> MaybeAmanda and onemillionnine  
><strong>Rating: <strong>NC17/Adult  
><strong>Dramatis Personae:<strong> Sherlock, John, Molly, Sarah, Lestrade, Mycroft, OMCs, OFCs  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Sherlock/Molly, John/Sarah  
><strong>Word count:<strong> Total 22,000 - This part~8000ish  
><strong>Summary:<strong> He could fix this.

**Warnings: **Consensual sex, off-screen violence, disturbing themes.

**Beta:** Courtesy of the lovely and talented what_alchemy

**BritPicking**. Courtesy of the vivacious and voluptuous non_canonical

**Disclaimer:** Son of fanfic of fanfic. Not ours, not really theirs, either. BBC, Moffat, Gatiss, ACD, PBS, Cumberbatch, Freeman, etc, etc. No money being made on this side.

**Note:** Thanks to all everyone who read, faved, rec'ed, kudo'ed, bookmarked, and sent comments/ feedback on Sustain. We appreciate it more than you can imagine.

_We read that we ought to forgive our enemies;_

_but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends._

_- Cosimo de' Medici_

Sometimes, it seemed to Molly that she had spent her entire life not quite having what other people had.

Not in the sense of material goods. True, she and her father had, for years, lived and died by the shop. Quick Eddie's Fish and Chips did all right, though, and they'd been comfortable, materially.

No, the place where Molly seemed to come up short was in the human relations department. She'd always known that, by not having a mother, she was missing out on some things. Her dad was great - hard-working, patient, kind - and she was with him, day in and day out, from the time she was three years old. It had taken her a long time to realize there were girly things she should be doing, though, and that she didn't really have anyone to do those girly things with. She'd learned to do her hair and make-up from magazines, had bought her first bra with the help of Edna, the older woman who sometimes helped out in the shop on Friday when they were busiest, and had taken care of her first period with a borrowed pad from the girl who worked the till when Molly was at school.

So, perhaps it wasn't so much that her life came up short. Perhaps it was more like - well, like there was a way things were supposed to be - the way they were for other people, the way they were on telly - and the way it worked in Molly Hooper's real life. It was a bit like the difference between the human body in a text book and one on the autopsy bay, really: mutations, anatomical defects, and general weirdness were more the rule than the exception. Looked at that way, her life was, she supposed, a mutation of sorts; not lethal or deleterious, but not quite what one had been told to expect, nonetheless.

Molly sighed. She thought when she went to medical school she'd be gaining some special knowledge. Instead, she'd been unnerved to have so much that seemed black-and-white transformed into hundreds of shades of grey. Really, she thought, the average person would be terrified to learn how much of medicine was guess work and how much was luck. Pathology had been such a welcome relief - no live patients to lie awake at night worried over killing; no pretending to be forceful and all-knowing, with her own voice in the back of her head playing devil's advocate the whole time.

Of course, medicine had only been a warm up for motherhood. The textbooks and the parenting manuals were so inconsistent and so at odds with one another that the whole thing was a vast muddle. If you followed one expert's directives to the letter, some other expert would put you on the list for mandatory sterilization. Halfway through her sixth completely contradictory baby manual she had realized that, beyond babies needing to be kept fed, clean, and cuddled, it was mostly bollocks. Luckily, her obstetrician, Mike Stamford, concurred. Molly liked Mike; he was nice, he was thorough, he had four children of his own, and he didn't pretend to know more about anything than he did. Not to her, at least.

Thank goodness Sherlock never second-guessed her when it came to Eddie's care. As far as Sherlock was concerned, she was the final authority on all things baby. And she second-guessed herself enough for both of them as it was.

Molly wiped banana off Eddie's chin. He was still nursing, but he had become so interested in solid food lately that his high-chair had finally been pulled into service. He'd finished almost half a banana, which, on top of nursing, was quite a bit. When he was in the mood, he was a bottomless pit. Just like Sherlock.

She wondered, briefly, where Sherlock had got to. He'd been in her flat for much of the past two days, working at his laptop and playing with Eddie - if you could call intense bouts of staring at one another 'playing.' Had there been a call from Inspector Lestrade? Was there a new client? Or was he finally done hanging about? Had he had enough?

She lifted her son from his high-chair and inspected. There was a little banana in the creases of his chin, but his hair, ears, and eyes had been spared, and that, Molly felt, could be counted as a win. She kissed his soft cheek, once, twice, three times, and he giggled.

"Molly!" Sherlock called. "Shampoo?"

Molly peaked around the door of her bathroom, to find Sherlock naked in her tub. "Excuse me?"

"Shampoo," he repeated.

"It's above your head," she replied. "Why are you in - "

Sherlock reached for the bottle in question, scowled. "I can't use this."

"Why not?"

Sherlock all but rolled his eyes. "Store brand shampoo? This is essentially washing-up liquid, artificial colourant, and some ghastly fragrance. I need my shampoo, from my shower."

Molly shifted Eddie from one hip to the other. "Why aren't you in your shower, then?"

Sherlock turned his gaze on her, arched one brow. "The laws of physics," he replied. "They dictate that I can only be in one shower at a time. This is the one I am currently in."

She felt herself blink in confusion. "What?"

"Molly, please," Sherlock said. "Please. I am asking nicely, am I not?"

Well, he had her there. It didn't explain why he was in her tub or how he'd managed to run the water without her noticing or anything, really. But he had asked nicely. She guessed that was something. And he was very naked, after all.

"Sure," Molly replied. It was hardly the oddest thing he'd ever asked her to do.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock loved his son. Edmund Hooper was the single most interesting person he knew, had possibly ever known. Every day Edmund was a bit bigger, a bit better coordinated, a bit smarter. Every day he had learned some demonstrable new skill. It was thrilling to watch his body and mind develop.

Molly was -

Molly was another matter. It had been a simple thing in that time before he had begun cataloguing the sounds Molly made when aroused, to categorically deny all his baser urges. He had felt he was well on his way to starving those sorts of appetites into extinction, before. It was a rather more complex question now that the link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy was no longer academic.

Sherlock slid under the water, soaking his hair. He often wished he had some means of switching off his drive until Molly had some use for it. Not that he found himself tempted by other women - or men, for that matter - because he emphatically did not. What he wanted, he found, was Molly, be it her ears to listen to him or her eyes to look at the things he wished to show her, or something more intimate. He was not her boyfriend, she was not his girlfriend, they had never dated, they would never date. She was the mother of his child, yes, and they were friendly, certainly. What they had worked for them, suited them, and -

And, it was all very simple as long as he didn't give it a moment's thought.

To make matters worse, he found he sometimes resented Edmund's dependence on her. He was aware his exposure to good fathers was limited, but he was fairly certain begrudging a child its mother's love was not one of their defining characteristics. John Watson would never think such a thing. Yes, there was a surprise - John was a better father than Sherlock, and he didn't even have a child.

Sherlock couldn't help it, though. There were times when he looked at Edmund, his beautiful, brilliant son, and wished the boy would go away somewhere - on a nice holiday, perhaps - so that Sherlock could have Molly to himself again for a few days. And when the feeling got too intense, Sherlock, disgusted with himself, went somewhere instead. Usually up to his flat.

Sherlock was the adult after all, whether he wanted to be one or not. Despite what everyone seemed to believe about him, he was capable of some self-control. He could wait for what he wanted. Of course he could. Which meant, when what he wanted was sitting right there on the sofa beside him, more often than not, he was tied in knots by his own indecision. At such times, those golden months of Molly's pregnancy took on a special significance in his brain, a time when he could ejaculate wherever he pleased without thought of repercussion, and no other man, not even one who shared half his DNA, could lay any claim to her whatsoever. He was petty, selfish, riddled with faults and flaws, and he deserved none of what he had and less of what he wanted. Which didn't mean for a moment he had considered giving any of it up.

He had hurt Molly, he knew this. Mummy had told him and Molly herself had corroborated. They had both used the same words, leveled the same charges against him - hot and cold, they had called him. Not that he was about to ask either of them to explain, but he had no idea how the phrase applied to himself or his behaviour. In truth, all he ever really felt was varying degrees of hot - burning with curiosity, with confusion, with shame. Burning with desire. Sherlock was always on fire. Particularly, it seemed to him, when they somehow went from opposite ends of the sofa to Molly in his lap, her breasts in his hands, his mouth on the delicious place where her neck met her shoulder, his erection straining painfully against her soft backside, Sherlock himself caught between lust rising like a tidal wave and the nearly insurmountable fear of his making an unforgivable mistake.

He did not know what he was doing wrong, but he knew there was always something. What was worse, he had no idea how to accurately ascertain her 'feelings.' Feelings were, unquestionably, small, stupid things, of negligible importance. Still, how and what Molly felt, and why, continued to plague him. It was not entirely unrelated to the reason Sherlock didn't properly live with - had, in fact, no desire to live with - the mother of his child; he knew his limits. He knew what he wanted, but what if what he wanted was the wrong thing?

Sometimes it was better never to ask, than to risk being told 'no,' no matter how kindly it might be said. He knew enough to accept that some men were cut out to climb the stairs in the dark with the taste of a woman on their lips, and go to bed alone.

He knew, too, that he was such a man.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sarah Sawyer-Watson liked her husband, liked him very much. John was steady, reliable, and attentive, without being the least bit dull. He was, arguably, a bit mad, but even his foibles were cute. After a few false starts, they'd properly found one another, and marrying him was, without question, the smartest thing she'd ever done.

You wouldn't mistake John for a neat freak, but years of army life had made him habitually tidy. As such, he didn't like to open the surgery in the morning until he had personally emptied the bins from the clinic into the skip in the alley. The cleaners came in at night after the clinic closed, of course, so he was effectively cleaning up after the cleaners, but she knew John didn't feel quite at ease unless he carried out the three crumpled pieces of paper and a mangled paperclip he'd found when he double-checked the bins each morning.

He usually didn't kick the door open on his way back in, though, much less carry in a person after he'd dumped the rubbish. "Look what I found," he said, eyes bright.

The shape in John's arms was small, swallowed by a huge hoodie, its pale face and hair both grey with London grime. His - her? - trousers were soaked through.

"O.D.?" Sarah was already on her feet, heading for the first exam room.

"And pregnant," John said. "Judy," he called over his shoulder to their receptionist, who was just arriving, "call an ambulance."

Judy dropped her bag on the reception desk and reached for the phone. "And tell them what, Dr. Watson?"

"Pregnant female, unconscious, possible overdose." He hurried her toward the exam room. "Christ," he said, placing her gently on the exam table. "She looks all of twelve years old."

Sarah handed John a pair of scissors, then quickly checked the girl's mouth and nose for obstructions. "Airways are clear," she said. She held her stethoscope to the girl's chest. Her breathing was shallow, her heartbeat, elevated and erratic. Not good. Not good at all. "Where did you find her?" she asked and began cutting away the girl's hoodie with her own scissors.

"Out by the skip," he answered, quickly cutting his way up the side of one trouser leg. "She was propped up against the - oh hell."

"Oh hell what?"

"Dammit. I thought this was piss," he answered. "I think it's mostly amniotic fluid. She's either miscarrying or delivering."

"What?" No." She ignored the hoodie for the time being and helped her husband cut off the jogging bottoms.

"Oh shit," John hissed. "Judy! Ambulance?"

"On the way," Judy replied as she leaned into the room "Can I help at all? Oh God, is that -?"

"Yes, that's a head," John replied. "Judy, get a piece of sterile draping and a warming blanket."

Sarah looked. She could see the fontanel pulse with each beat of the child's heart. "Baby's alive," she said, surprised. "But it won't be for long at this rate. We have to -"

Even as she spoke, the girl's abdomen tightened, and a small, dark form slipped into the world. "Shit," she said, barely catching the child. A boy. Impossibly small and impossibly alive and struggling for breath, his stick-thin arms and legs flailing. She tipped him to the side, ran her finger gently through his mouth, cleared out the mucus and fluid pooled there.

Judy held the blanket spread for her, and Sarah wrapped him as quickly as she could.

So tiny, Sarah thought, so helpless. And he didn't stand a chance.

She'd seen it before, of course - the children of addicts, born addicted themselves, under-weight, sickly. Behavioural problems. Learning difficulties. On-going health issues. If they survived at all.

It wasn't fair. None of it was fair, and it filled her with fury. How could anyone, how dare anyone -

The baby gave a tiny cry then, barely a gasp, and turned his face toward the light. It took Sarah's breath away.

In that moment, even as the ambulance attendants raced in and went to work on the child's mother, even as the mother began seizing violently, everything seemed very quiet, very still. Sarah held that tiny boy against her chest, marveling that, against all odds, he was alive.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

John Watson sat on the other side of D.I. Lestrade's desk, looking grim. It was the first time Lestrade had seen him at the Yard without Sherlock.

Lestrade had listened to John's story, made a few phone calls, but they'd resulted in nothing. "Her fingerprints aren't in the system," he said, "and she's doesn't look to be a match for any missing persons reports."

John nodded once, looking resigned. "Right."

"Something might turn up, of course. I'll keep an eye out."

"I'd appreciate that, thanks."

It was time, Lestrade decided, to ask the most obvious question. "Have you asked Sherlock to look into it?"

John dipped his chin and looked up at him through his lashes, a look clearly meant to ask 'what do you think, Lestrade, you idiot?'

"He knows people, John, people who'd talk to him a lot sooner than talk to a copper."

"I know," John sighed. "It's just, well, he's a complete git, isn't he?"

Lestrade couldn't help grinning. "Why the interest, anyway?"

John sat up a bit straighter. "You mean, why do I give a shit about a dead child I found giving birth on my doorstep?"

"Right." Lestrade grimaced. " 'Course. Sorry."

John let out a long breath, sighed. "Sarah's a wreck," he said. "I've never seen her like this. And I'd just like to be able to tell her the kid's got some lovely grandparents in a cottage in Shropshire he can go to once he's well enough to leave hospital, so she can stop pretending she isn't ringing up the NICU every chance she gets, or going to sneak over there after her shift."

"Ah," Lestrade said, catching on. "And Sherlock's likely to be an arse about it?"

"'Arse' is his default setting, isn't it? And Sarah's been - we've -" John shook his head, ran a hand over his face. "Never mind."

"I'm sorry, John, I really am. But if you want answers, really want them, and quickly, Sherlock's your best bet."

"I was afraid of that." He rose to leave. "Thanks, yeah?"

Lestrade waved him off. "Of course -" he began, then stopped abruptly.

John stood with his hand on the doorknob. "Of course what?"

"You know how he is. He may uncover things you don't really want to know. Keep that in mind before you go to him, yeah?"

John gave one short, sharp nod. "Yeah. I will. Thanks."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock sat upstairs in his flat, reading a book on the history of the lift, which he had nearly finished. Next, provided nothing interesting turned up, he was planning to work his way through a new book on the history of religious cannibalism. He wasn't entirely sure whether he hoped something would turn up or not. It was a novel feeling.

Molly sat on the sofa feeding Edmund, who was starting to spend more time awake each day. Yesterday he'd managed to remain conscious a banner seven hours, cumulatively. Having assured himself that this level of somnolence was not unusual, even in a six month old, Sherlock found himself wondering, in a vague way, what it was like in the boy's developing brain. What did a person dream of when the sum total of their experience consisted of floating about inside a uterus, eating, and staring? It was an interesting question. He watched from the corner of his eye as Edmund reached up and patted Molly's cheek.

Edmund loved Molly, Sherlock surmised.

Oh, of course he did. And well he should.

Sherlock put down his book, rose and stretched. He'd love a cup of tea, but Molly was clearly otherwise occupied. Her skills in the tea-making area hadn't much improved, but practice made perfect, so more practice was absolutely called for.

He could wait, he supposed, but he didn't want to. Nor did he want to do anything as stupid as ask Molly to get up and make him a cup of tea while she was feeding Edmund.

Nothing else for it, then. He rose. "I am going to make tea," he declared.

"Oh?"

"Would you like a cup?"

Molly blinked. "Oh, thanks, yes."

"Not a prob - ooooh." Through the window, Sherlock observed John marching up the pavement, exuding both grim determination and not a small amount of trepidation.

Not a social visit, then. Interesting.

Sherlock turned from the window and grabbed his phone from the mantel. "Unless I am very much mistaken, John's bringing me a case."

"John Watson?" she asked. "What kind of case would John have for you?"

"I've no idea, but it's obvious from his gait," Sherlock replied. "Don't wait up."

"I hadn't planned to," she replied with a wry grin. "Does this mean the tea is off?"

"Anybody home?" John called from the foyer.

"Not for long," Sherlock answered him. "You can tell me about the case in the cab."

"How did you-? Oh, never mind." John bounded up the stairs, stuck his head in the door. At the sight of Molly feeding Edmund, he took a step back and averted his eyes. "Oh, sorry," he said.

Molly tugged the receiving blanket resting on the sofa next to her up and over Edmund and her partially exposed breast. "Not a problem," she replied with forced nonchalance.

"Come along, John," Sherlock said, directing him from the flat.

"Actually, I wanted to speak to Molly, too," John said, "but if this is a bad time -"

"It's fine," Molly said. "I'm not bothered, if you're not."

Most of that was bravado on Molly's part, some desire to be seen as modern and unselfconscious, even though she was neither. Sherlock knew she'd probably be more comfortable if John were to speak to her after Edmund had finished his meal, and that, in all likelihood, John would be, too.

Despite this, John peered past him, and having ascertained that Molly was what John would probably categorise as 'decent,' moved into the sitting room. The action only served to underscore how much John wanted to speak to both of them. Interesting, indeed.

"Not bothered at all," John blustered. "Doctor, remember?" Still, he sat in the chair he had favoured while living in the flat, positioning himself so that Molly was far out of his line of sight as she could be without him actually turning his back to her.

John was always so polite.

"And what brings you here, _Doctor_?" Sherlock asked, returning to the chair he'd vacated only moments before.

John took a moment to compose himself. "A woman, a girl really, died in my surgery yesterday morning, would probably have died in the alley if I hadn't taken out the rubbish. Homeless, as far as anyone can tell and -"

"Murder?" Sherlock asked.

John shook his head. "No."

"Suspicious?"

"A bit, yeah."

Sherlock frowned. John was lying. To him. Why? What possible reason could he have for lying about the death of -

"Suspicious in what way?" Molly asked.

John very deliberately did not turn to look at her, instead focusing on a point near his own shoes. "She was in labour when I found her, but unresponsive. When her labour started, she must have reckoned we could help her."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, John," Molly said, her face pinched.

Sherlock shot her a look. Why was she sorry?

"It's always hard to lose a patient, Sherlock," Molly explained.

"This girl was hardly his patient," Sherlock objected. "And how would you know? All yours come to you pre-lost."

She sighed. "Yes, I suppose they do," she said. "Here, hold Eddie." Molly, 'decent' again, placed Edmund in Sherlock's lap. "Tea, John? Sherlock?"

Sherlock shook his head, no longer interested. It didn't seem wise to have scalding liquids within arm's reach with Edmund in his charge, either, which should be obvious.

"Ta," John said.

Tummy full, Edmund curled himself into the crook of Sherlock's arm, ready for yet another nap. Sherlock swung him up onto his shoulder, a position they both favoured, and began rubbing circles into the baby's back. "What are you smirking at?" he asked John.

"Me? What? No," John countered. "Not smirking."

That was a lie too, but Sherlock chose to let it go with no more than a slight scowl. "I am unclear as to why you want my help," Sherlock said, "or even what help you actually want. I assume, given the area, this girl was an addict?"

John nodded. "Going by her arms, yeah."

"Right," Sherlock said. "To summarise, an addict and her child died in your surgery and-"

"No," John said. "No. The, ah, the baby, the boy, he survived."

That stopped Sherlock short. "Oh. Oh, I see."

"He's small," John said, looking at his hands. "Quite premature, and he didn't have the best start -"

"Oh, that's awful," Molly said. She handed John a mug, then perched on the arm of Sherlock's chair, sipping carefully from her own drink. "What his prognosis?"

"Too soon to say." John shrugged, but Sherlock knew he felt the prognosis was dire, but not without hope. "But I was wondering, Sherlock -"

"You want me to talk to my contacts and see if I can find out who this girl was and if the child has a next of kin, presumably so, should he survive, he won't have to go into care, but more likely because Sarah's already grown unreasonably attached and you want to nip that in the proverbial bud." Sherlock rattled off. "Well? Did I miss anything?"

John gave him a hard look, then sighed. "No," he said at last. "No, you didn't."

"Sherlock will be happy to help you," Molly said.

Sherlock's eyes went wide. "Oh? Will I?"

Molly took another sip of her tea. "Yes," Molly answered. "You're in the perfect position to help him, and he's your best mate, so after you've fussed a bit, you will." She turned and stroked Edmund's head. "Won't you?"

Sherlock sniffed. Molly was not his girlfriend, and she certainly was not his booking agent. The fact that she was right did little to assuage his irritation at being told he'd do something he was going to do, regardless. "Fine."

"I wanted to ask a favour of you too, Molly," John said. "The girl's at Barts. The post-mortem is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Dr. Redmond is supposed to do it, but he doesn't know me from Adam and - "

"Of course," Molly said at exactly the same instant Sherlock said "no."

"Of course I'll do the autopsy," Molly stated firmly.

"No, no, I just meant -" John began.

"What? Do the autopsy? Where? In your flat, on the kitchen table, while Edmund is napping? Please," Sherlock scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No, I didn't mean -" John tried again.

"No, in the mortuary at Barts," Molly said. "Your surgery isn't open tomorrow, is it?"

John shook his head. "No, but -"

"Mrs. Hudson is visiting her sister for a few days, but I'm sure if she's not busy Sarah probably wouldn't mind watching Edmund for a few hours -"

"Sarah?" Sherlock asked. "Why would Sarah need to look after Edmund?"

"Because you'll be out with John, obviously," Molly answered. "Do try to keep up," she said, grinning into her tea.

Splendid. Now Molly was mocking him. Sherlock's day kept improving. What next? Was Mycroft going to show up with photographs of infant Sherlock in the bath?

John's expression brightened. "Oh. Well. That - that would be brilliant. Thank -"

"You can't just barge in, wrench the body away from Bill Redmond, no matter what an incompetent moron he is, and perform the autopsy. There is hospital protocol to consider," Sherlock said as evenly as he could. "I've no doubt there are rules about this sort of thing."

Molly blinked at Sherlock. "Goodness, we can't break any rules, can we?" She turned to John. "If nothing else, I can assist. Bill, who is not an incompetent moron, won't mind an extra set of hands, I'm sure. Do you know what time it's scheduled for?"

"Eight thirty, I think Micha said-"

"Molly -" Sherlock heard himself say, his voice sounding all wrong. He had lost control of this situation - but what exactly was this situation?

John's phone buzzed. "Oh, sorry," he said, scanning the screen. "I have to get back to the surgery." He turned his attention back to Sherlock. "Shall I meet you here?"

"I do have another case on at present," Sherlock said.

"Which one?" Molly asked. Edmund had started to fuss, and Molly had immediately put her tea down and reached for him. It seemed petty for Sherlock to try to hang on, but he wished to, nonetheless.

"Bodmin," Sherlock said.

Molly patted Edmund's back, soothingly. "The missing husband? You told me he ran off with the barista."

Sherlock sniffed. "So I did."

"Look, if you can't -" John began with an air of resignation.

"Of course I can," Sherlock snapped. "And I will." He stood. "Here, then, at eight o'clock."

"Why don't you meet at yours, John?" Molly suggested. "That way Sherlock can drop Eddie off with Sarah."

"Sounds good," John said. "Yes, sure."

Sherlock looked from John to Molly, trying to decide which of them he hated more at the moment. A tie would probably have to be declared. "Fine," he said. "See yourself out," he told John, and left the room, and then the house.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock had been gone for hours. Nothing new there. When he'd returned, he'd sequestered himself upstairs in his flat, again, for hours. Nothing new there, either. What he hadn't done after returning to 221B was rifle through her fridge, pretending to be hungry, but really just wanting to be in her flat in order to be sure Eddie was still breathing. Nor did he text her any strange requests, designed to get her to bring Eddie upstairs, in order to be sure he was still breathing. That _was_ new.

Molly had never seen Sherlock angry. Well, no, that wasn't completely true. She had, in fact, seen him angry with the stupidity of Scotland Yard, with the dull-wittedness of all humans, everywhere, and with the ongoing existence of his brother. But she'd never seen him angry with her. As the day wore on into evening, she was beginning to wonder if this was how it looked when Sherlock was angry with her. If so, she didn't like it.

Eddie was napping in his playpen, and would be for another hour or so if he held true to form. Molly finally decided that if she and Sherlock were going to row, this was as good a time as any. Making sure the baby monitor was turned on and working, and that the door was securely locked and the alarms all set, she grabbed the handset and headed for the stairs.

"Sherlock?" Molly called out, but got no answer for her trouble. Regardless, Sherlock's shoes were still in the hall, and his keys, phone, and wallet were all on the mantel, so he was definitely home. And very likely in a strop.

Perhaps she should leave now. Order dinner in, sit in front of her telly with her food and her baby and let Sherlock sulk to his heart's content. Yes, that was definitely what she should do.

Instead, she knocked on his bedroom door. "Sherlock," she called, not waiting for his reply, "I'm going to ring for Chinese. Interested?"

After a moment, he answered, "No, thank you."

Molly winced. If he were preoccupied, she would have been answered with a grunt; if he were genuinely not interested, he'd have just said 'no.' Instead, he'd pulled out his breeding. Molly was being snubbed.

She took a deep breath. "Can I - may I come in?"

"What. For?" Sherlock made each word its own sentence.

"I'd like to speak to you."

"About?"

She cleared her throat. "May I come in?"

She waited with her hand on the door, listening intently. If he said 'no,' she'd, well, she'd go downstairs. And if he said 'yes,' she'd go in, and they'd have a civilised conversation just like the two adults they were supposed to be. And if he told her to go to hell, well, she'd -

The door flew open. "What do you want?" he demanded.

At the best of times, Sherlock towered over her. But now, wearing only his mismatched sulking pyjamas and a stormy expression, he pulled out all the stops, using his extra height to simultaneously crowd her and attempt to drive her away. It was a stance designed to intimidate.

But she was not about to be intimidated by some man in an inside-out tee-shirt whose hair looked as if it had spent a week in a tornado. "I believe - I believe I said I wanted to talk to you," she answered. She congratulated herself on the relative steadiness of her voice.

Sherlock's expression darkened, but he didn't reply.

She swallowed. "You're angry with me," she said.

Sherlock snorted. "Am I?"

"Yes," she answered. "Yes, I - I think you are."

"And why would I be angry?" he asked with a twisted grin. "What could you have possibly done to anger me?"

Molly shrugged. "I've no idea."

"No, of course you don't," he sneered. He turned and stalked back to his bed.

Molly had been in Sherlock's bedroom exactly once, and the circumstances had been less than ideal. It had been the day she'd come home from the hospital after Eddie's birth. She'd been delirious with the pain of her incision and impacted breasts, confused and angry. She hadn't noticed much about the room beyond the fact that it was a tip.

It wasn't a tip now. Gone were the clothes, books, and random bits of laboratory and kitchen equipment she remembered having to weave her way through that first time. The room was still filled with shelves, and the shelves were still filled with boxes and books, but everything appeared to have a place, and everything was in it. And now that she was really looking, it was obvious that anything dangerous or breakable had been relegated to the upper shelves.

Molly peeked at the bed. Sherlock had gone back to beating up on his laptop, but he'd left enough space for her to sit on the edge. The meaning was as clear as if he'd sent her an engraved invitation.

She seated herself carefully. "Tell me what's wrong?"

Sherlock continued typing, studiously ignoring her.

Molly almost wanted to laugh. Sherlock thought he had a corner on stubbornness, and not, it had to be said, without reason. But Molly won staring contests with corpses who didn't want to give up their secrets every day. She was not about to blink first.

After a few minutes, the typing stopped. "Why did you volunteer to do this autopsy?" he asked, speaking more to the keyboard than to her.

Molly frowned. "That's what this is about? Really? I volunteered because John asked."

"John did not ask," Sherlock corrected. "John was clearly about to ask if you'd obtain a copy of the autopsy report for him. That was all."

"Oh." That surprised her. It had been obvious to her that John felt a connection to this woman - girl, John called her - and her baby, and that he was upset by the death. She was no doubt projecting her own feelings on the situation, but had she been the one in John's situation, she'd have wanted someone she knew and trusted to carry out the post-mortem. Sherlock would call that 'silly' and 'sentimental,' but she would never deny being either. She'd assumed John had been about to ask the same thing.

"Yes, 'oh,'" Sherlock said. "So now, instead, you've committed to spending the morning at Barts up to your elbows in some dead nameless junkie, when all you're likely to discover is that she is, indeed, a dead nameless junkie."

"Probably, yes. So?"

"So?" Sherlock was incredulous. "So, because of your rash, misguided volunteerism and misplaced over-identification, Edmund is to spend the morning with a stranger, and -"

Molly shook her head. "Stranger?" she asked. "Sarah is hardly a stranger. Sarah is his godmother!"

Sherlock all but rolled his eyes. "Your point being?"

Molly's mind whirled. She hadn't expected this, hadn't expected it at all. And frankly, she was having trouble understanding it. "He's stayed with Mrs. Hudson before," she said, "when I've had to go out and you weren't here."

Sherlock scowled. "Not the same at all."

Molly exhaled slowly. She had the sense that she was missing something here, missing something very important.

"Sherlock, what do you think is going to happen when - no, wait." She stopped herself, realising she was phrasing this badly. She started again, aiming for something less incendiary. "When I start back to work, how do you imagine Eddie will be spending his days?"

Sherlock closed his eyes. "I won't always be available, obviously, and Mrs. Hudson is our landlady, not our governess. Furthermore, despite her willingness to look after Edmund, she has a dodgy hip, which makes her singularly unsuited to undertaking a career in chasing a toddler about on a fulltime basis. I have offered, more than once, to pay for a nanny or an au pair. As far as I can tell, you've made no move to secure either one."

"No, I haven't," Molly said.

"And are you planning to?"

"No."

"Leading me to conclude that you are not, in fact, planning to return to work."

"Oh. Oh dear." Molly shook her head. "No. When my leave is over, I am very definitely planning to return to work. Eddie already has a place reserved at the creche."

"Creche?"

"At Barts," she said.

Sherlock blinked once. "Ah," he said. "I see."

Clearly, she had surprised him with this news. Surprised, she thought, and perhaps hurt, too.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just thought -"

He cleared his throat, sat straighter. "No need to apologise," he assured her.

She reached out and put her hand on his leg, just below his knee. He flinched and pulled away.

"I just thought, this way, I'd um, be able to see him during the day," she explained. "On my breaks and, and at lunch. I can take him out for walks when the weather's nice, and-"

"Yes, of course," Sherlock said. "I'm sure that will be very nice for the two of you." But it didn't sound like he thought it would be nice for anyone at all. He returned to his typing.

Molly tried to collect her thoughts. They hadn't discussed it, of course, but Sherlock had shown no interest in the topic at all. Yes, he'd offered to pay for a nanny, but that been months and months ago, and he hadn't brought the subject up since. She'd assumed it was understood: she was on leave, but leave was temporary, and when that leave was over, she'd resume her position. Eddie needed to get out with other children, and Molly liked her job, liked what she did, and how it made her feel about herself. Why had Sherlock thought otherwise?

She looked around his tidy, child-proofed room, and felt, suddenly, like she'd been stabbed.

Oh no.

"I am sorry," she said again.

"You've already said that," Sherlock answered, eyes on his computer. "No need to repeat yourself. I have work to do." She was clearly being dismissed.

She stood, smoothed out the wrinkles she'd made in the duvet. She stared at him for a long moment.

"Was there something else?" he asked.

"No." Molly rubbed her forehead. "Look, I've already committed to doing this autopsy in the morning."

"Yes, you have. And?"

"And, and, I told John I'd do it, I've cleared it with Bill Redmond and Sarah, and it's only going to take a few hours."

"Is there a point to this?"

"I'm not going to back out."

"Nor should you," Sherlock said. "You gave your word, after all."

Molly opened her mouth to reply, but the handset lit up and the sound of Eddie's fussing filled the cavernous space between Sherlock and her.

"Your son needs you," Sherlock said. "Go."

Molly nodded once, and left.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sometimes Ollie didn't pay attention like she should. It was dangerous, that. Anything could happen out here. Anything at all.

"Spare change, luv?" she called out absently, and when the geezer turned round, he was none other than the man in the long dark coat. Only without the coat, as it was too warm for that. Even without the coat, it was Sherlock Holmes.

"What for?" he asked; that was what he always asked.

"Cuppa tea, of course," she said, because she knew that was the right answer, the one that meant she was ready to work, the one that would get her the biggest tip.

He gave her the money and the tightly folded paper, the way he always did. "Consider eating something, too," he said.

He was halfway back to the kerb before she got the page unfolded and saw she didn't need to ask around about this one. "Oi!" she called out then ran after him before he could get into his cab. "Oi, Sherlock!"

Sherlock turned round. The little bloke, the blond one who was with him sometimes, was already in the cab.

"I know her, a bit," Ollie said. "Knew her I guess, yeah? She looks well dead here."

"That's because she is, in fact, well dead." Sherlock gave a short, sharp nod and leaned into the cab, said something.

The other man came out and the cab left.

"Tell me everything you know about the girl in the picture," Sherlock said, "starting with her name."

"That's Bunny's girl, don't know her name, though," Ollie said. "Never heard one for her, neither."

"How did Bunny refer to her?" Sherlock asked. In response to Ollie's blank look he said, "What did he call her, Ollie? What name?"

Ollie shook her head. "Nothing I can remember. And she never said nothing."

"She never said 'anything,' and what do you mean? Do you mean that literally?" Sherlock asked.

Ollie gave him another blank look.

The little one said, "He means, did she really never say anything at all, or was she just a quiet one?"

"Nothing, never a word," Ollie said. "Bunny said she couldn't talk at all, born like that, yeah?"

Sherlock nodded. "With whom did they - who did they hang with?"

"Kept to themselves, mostly. They're just a couple of kids. Neither of 'ems been 'round here for long. Came from up north I think, but I'm not sure. We weren't that friendly, yeah?"

"This Bunny, is he her pimp?" Sherlock asked.

"Nothin' like that. I mean, she might've tommed about for him every now and then, but not regular," Ollie explained. "Sides, she's up the duff. Not that there aren't those what like that, but -"

"So she worked for him, but he's not her pimp? How's that work?" the little one asked, his mouth set hard.

"Only when necessary, you know. When they were sick," she said, looking at Sherlock.

Sherlock nodded.

"Sick how?" John asked.

"Needin' medicine," she said, tapping two fingers on the inside of her arm. "Just her taking care of him like your doris would do for you, if you were in a bad way."

Maybe she shouldn't have said that last bit; Sherlock looked like he wanted his fifty quid back, and every penny he'd ever given her on top of that.

The little one snorted. "My doris? No."

Sherlock glared at her, but he didn't ask for his money, which was a mercy. "Where can we find this Bunny?"

"'Member that real tall fella, ugly as pure sin, a while back?" she asked. "Been sleepin' over there, I think."

Sherlock looked at her, nodded once, turned, and hailed another cab. "Come along, John."

As the cab was getting ready to pull away, he rolled down the window, and said, very quietly, "And Ollie, not my doris, either."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

"I can't imagine it," John said as the cab drew closer to Vauxhall Arches.

"Imagine what?" Sherlock asked. He'd been alternately staring out the window and staring at his mobile, and he didn't seem to have heard any of the things John had said since they got in the cab.

"When you were using, actively using, would you have expected your girlfriend to turn tricks so you could get high?" John asked, ripping the piece of paper in his pocket to shreds.

"Girlfriend?" Sherlock turned away from his phone and squinted at him. "Not my area, remember?"

"Molly -" John began.

"- is absolutely not my girlfriend," Sherlock said, attention back on the phone.

"What? What is she, then?" John said.

" - and even had I such an entanglement at the time, I doubt I would have trusted anyone else to make certain I had what I needed."

John had obviously hit a nerve. Sherlock's entire relationship with Molly was confusing, and thinking about it gave John a headache. But Sherlock was doing him a favour, and he didn't want to push his luck.

"Seriously," John said, grinding his back teeth. "What kind of person uses another person that way? What kind of man does that?"

The cab stopped. "An addict," Sherlock said.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

end 1/3


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Sustain II: Refrain (2/3)  
><strong>Authors:<strong> MaybeAmanda and onemillionnine  
><strong>Rating: <strong>NC17/Adult  
><strong>Dramatis Personae:<strong> Sherlock, John, Molly, Sarah, Lestrade, Mycroft, OMCs, OFCs  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Sherlock/Molly, John/Sarah  
><strong>Word count:<strong> Total 22,000 This part: ~6,600  
><strong>Summary:<strong> He could fix this.

**Warnings: **Consensual sex, off-screen violence, disturbing themes.

**Beta:** Courtesy of the lovely and talented what_alchemy

**BritPicking**. Courtesy of the vivacious and voluptuous non_canonical

**Disclaimer:** Son of fanfic of fanfic. Not ours, not really theirs, either. BBC, Moffat, Gatiss, ACD, PBS, Cumberbatch, Freeman, etc, etc. No money being made on this side.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Molly stood in the mortuary, surprisingly pleased to be back at work, even if it was just for the day.

"Who was she, then?" Bill Redmond asked. Bill was a good few years older than Molly, tallish, and a touch stout, with blond hair that was receding at a steady pace. Born in Yorkshire, he'd married a Welsh woman he met at uni and then followed her home. He'd worked in Wales for most of his career, he'd told Molly, someplace with a lot of L's and a dearth of vowels. Freshly divorced, he'd come to Barts, technically filling in during her maternity leave, but with Dr. Gupta set to retire, he was likely to be staying on.

"No one seems to know," Molly said. She pulled her hair back into a pony tail, then snapped on her gloves.

"Oh," Redmond said. "I just wondered if you knew her, or if someone close to you did."

Molly shook her head. "No. She died at the surgery of, well, friends of mine work there," she said. That was true, now, she supposed. John and Sarah were her son's godparents. John was definitely more Sherlock's friend than hers, but she and Sarah got on well enough. That made them friends, right? "She wasn't really in their care, she'd more or less just collapsed on the doorstep. But they were quite upset by, um, by the circumstances, and asked if I'd have a look in."

"Ah," he said. "I thought, maybe that's why you'd offered to simply assist, so you wouldn't be the primary on this."

"Oh, no, not really," Molly said. "My understanding is that she was an addict and died of an overdose, or you know, effects of prolonged drug use. I just didn't want you to think I was pushing my way into your mortuary."

"It's hardly my mortuary," he said, grinning. He gestured to the sheet-covered slab. "And yeah, I gave her the once-over. Her arms are a mess, and she weighs about six stone dripping wet and tied to a five stone anchor. Do you want me to do this with you, then? Because I could just as easily get started on the other three I've got scheduled for the morning."

"Why don't you do that?" she said. "There's no need for two of us on this."

"Perfect. That'll save loads of time," Redmond said, heading for the door. "I'll be in Room Six if you should need me for anything."

Molly finished her preparations, and stretched, psyching herself up for a minimum of three hours on her feet. She was a bit out of practice.

People who wrote books and made telly programs glamourising pathologists often forgot the first real step in any autopsy; a thorough examination of the corpse's outward appearance. She pulled back the sheet and looked over the body. "Okay, let's see what you have to tell me," she said, just before she switched on the microphone on the recorder. She'd made a habit of it, of talking to her 'patients,' even if they were 'pre-lost,' as Sherlock had said. Even dead, they were still people, still deserving of respect and consideration. It was wrong to treat them like objects, like broken things, instead.

Molly worked in comparative silence, speaking aloud only to record her observations. The girl was, as John had said, very young, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen, and x-rays of her teeth and long bones might help determine that more accurately. Bill had been right, too; the girl was so, so thin, especially for someone who had given birth not a two full days before. Malnutrition was very likely, but whether it was long-term or short-term would have to be established.

Molly thought briefly of this woman's baby. Sherlock had suggested to John that Sarah was already - how had he phrased it? - 'unreasonably attached' - and John hadn't tried to deny it. Sarah had mentioned that she and John had been trying for a baby for months, from the minute they'd returned from Africa, more or less. So far, they hadn't had any luck, and were reaching the point of seeking medical intervention and considering other options.

Then, to have such a tiny child, with the odds stacked so high against him, almost dropped in her lap like this - poor Sarah. And, judging by the enthusiastic way John had taken to Eddie, she wondered if perhaps he wasn't a little 'unreasonably attached' too.

Oh, now that was strange. The girl had collapsed veins and tracks like any long-time addict, but not nearly as many as Molly would have expected. And, really, she was, except for the thinness, the healthiest-looking junkie Molly had seen in her career.

Which was interesting. Very interesting.

It might mean nothing. It might mean something.

She switched off the microphone, pulled off one glove, and fired off a text to Sherlock.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

When they reached the Arches, Sherlock pulled out his torch before John was even out of the cab. Even in daylight, it was dark, dank, the natural habitat of vermin, human and otherwise. This was a long shot, because the denizens of such an area would be out trying to scrape together enough for a fix of one kind or another during the day. Anyone left behind was either too sick to 'work' or thoroughly played-out. Still, a lead was a lead.

Nests of newspapers, shopping trolleys, cardboard boxes, and plastic shop bags filled the corners and crannies; the detritus one would expect at a makeshift campsite of this type. A rat or two, some mangy, diseased cats. No 'Bunny,' though.

"Bit empty down here," John said. "Usually someone's about."

"Good weather," Sherlock said. "Perhaps they're sunbathing."

"Day at the seaside," John said. "Of course."

Likely a clue to this Bunny's daytime hangout could be found in his sleeping place. It was slightly more challenging to suss out in this near darkness, but only a few of the areas were of a size to be used by more than single sleepers.

He could hear John's distinctive footsteps come to a halt behind him. "Sherlock," John muttered.

Sherlock shone the light against the wall. Ah, there was large one; newspapers, syringes, and a McDonald's wrapper. The odds were even that it was theirs. He bent down to get a closer look, the map of Vauxhall unfolding in his mind -

John's voice buzzed in the background, calling his name.

Locations for procuring and shooting heroin buzzed through his brain, prioritised by ease of access from the Arches. Turn right or left? This park or that convenient alleyway? Which would be more likely if Bunny thought his girl had gone to score?

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock studied the filthy shoeprints on the concrete, evidence of three days of rain. He was reasonably sure he had isolated the victim's, but thus far, Bunny's were harder to pick out from the rest.

"Bloody hell, Sherlock, would you just turn round?"

What did he want?

Sherlock turned. John was shining his own torch on the wall behind Sherlock. Blood and brains were splattered all over it.

"Oh."

"I think that could be a clue," John said. "Christ, what a mess."

The corpse, partly concealed by a flattened cardboard box, was missing much of the right side of its head, and what was left was a mass of dried blood, maggots. Sherlock sniffed once, twice, and observed. Male, young, and thin. Under torchlight, he could see B U N N Y tattooed in crooked letters across the knuckles of the left hand. The line was the wrong thickness, not to mention colour, for the needle-and-India-ink method, too crude even for a beginning prison tattoo artist. There was no tattoo Sherlock had seen worse than a boys' reformatory tattoo, performed with a sharpened bit of wire from some random piece of machinery and the scraped-together ink from a broken biro.

At least this one was spelled correctly. So few of them were.

"Guess this is him, yeah?"

"Seems promising, yes."

John was crouched beside the body, poking at the skin of the boy's arm with his gloved hand. "Shot to the head, obviously, close range, handgun of some sort. I'm guessing death occurred in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, probably closer to forty-eight, given the maggots."

"Fits the timeline," Sherlock agreed. He slipped his torch in his pocket, pulled out his phone. He took a picture of Bunny's shattered head and tattoo, then sent them and a text to Lestrade:

GOOD NEWS: FOUND JOHN'S DEAD GIRL'S LOVER.

BAD NEWS: SOMEONE BLEW HIS HEAD OFF.

VAUXHALL ARCHES. NOW.

SH

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

"This one, I know," Lestrade said, not quite twenty minutes later. The forensics team swarmed around the scene, setting up lights and cameras, collecting samples and photographing the remains. "Charles 'Bunny' O'Hare," Lestrade read from the display on his phone. "Shoplifting, petty theft, loitering, some other minor charges."

"Drugs?" Sherlock asked.

"None," Lestrade said. "Which, judging by the state of his arms, just means he hadn't been caught at it. Seems he's only been in London a few months."

Sherlock whirled round to face Lestrade. "He was in care several years. Where?"

"How could you tell?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock simply glared.

"Right, I'm an idiot, ta," Lestrade said. He poked at his own mobile. "Seems your Bunny here was a Brummie boy."

"The boy was obviously a chronic run-away, but his last group home should hold some clue. Which was it?" Sherlock demanded.

"I can do you one better than that. I've got the name of his Care Leaving Counsellor. Bunny here was about to age-out of the system when he ran," Lestrade said. "This information is confidential, of course, so I'm Sorry but I can't give it to either of you." Even as he said that, Lestrade hit the send button, forwarding the information to both Sherlock and John. Both phones pinged, almost simultaneously.

"Of course you can't," John said. "That would be completely unprofessional."

Texting away as usual, Sherlock simply ignored them.

"What do you reckon?" John asked, gesturing to the crime scene.

"Who knows? Territory, drugs, someone wanted his trainers - "

"Yeah, but a gun?" John asked. "A knife's more common in this sort of situation, isn't it? Guns are difficult to get."

Still texting, Sherlock snorted.

John shot Sherlock a look that was half annoyance and half alarm, but which Lestrade chose to ignore, just as he ignored so many other things.

"The scene's a mess, and a couple of days old, at least. I doubt there's much for forensics to find in the way of trace," Lestrade continued. He shot Sherlock a look that contained equal portions of envy and irritation. "Still have to look for it, of course, because we're, you know, the professionals."

"Indeed you are," Sherlock said, attention still on his mobile. "Oh!" Clearly satisfied with some bit of information his phone had offered up, Sherlock turned to him. "Good day, Lestrade," he said and headed back the way they'd come.

"Where are you going?" John called to Sherlock's back.

"'We' are going to Euston Station," Sherlock said without pausing, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "We've a train to catch."

As usual, John had to race to catch up.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock spent the first hour of the train trip staring out the window, greeting any attempt John made at conversation with non-committal grunts. After the third try, John found a discarded newspaper tucked under the seat and chose to concentrate on that, instead.

John had known bringing this 'case' to Sherlock would be risky. He'd expected a lecture on over-involvement, sentimentality, self-aggrandisement, lack of professionalism - any charge Sherlock could level that would make John feel a fool and make it clear the job was beneath Sherlock's towering intellect. Instead, Molly had told Sherlock he was going to do it, and wonder of wonders, he was doing it.

Sherlock insisted Molly was not his girlfriend - still - but she obviously had influence over the man. Quite a bit of influence, really. John would have to thank her properly for her help - both in getting Sherlock involved, and in volunteering to look in on the autopsy personally - when Sherlock was nowhere within earshot.

Sherlock snapped alive a short while later when his phone chirped. In the blink of an eye, he went from pensive to engaged, his thumbs and eyes both blazing.

"What's that?" John asked. He thought he had about a fifty-fifty chance of getting a reply.

"Molly," Sherlock said, eyes still on his phone.

John looked at his watch. Half eleven. If she was finished already, it probably meant there'd been little outside of the ordinary for her to find. "Are they finished?" John asked.

"She's conducting the autopsy herself, and I'd say she's about half done, judging by her remarks." He scrolled through screen after screen. "She's simply discovered a few things she thought that I should - oh."

"Well?" John asked.

"Well what?" Sherlock said, scowling.

"What did she find?"

"Oh. Among other things, it appears the victim had given birth at least twice before she had 'your' baby -" Sherlock said.

John winced. "First off, it's not my baby -"

"You know what I mean," Sherlock said, his eyes only flicking up to meet John's for an instant.

"And that girl can't have been more than sixteen," John pointed out.

"Which makes her previous pregnancies more noteworthy, don't you think?" Sherlock handed John his phone. "The uterus in question."

That was a uterus, all right; over all, he noted, the tissue looked healthy. And there, across the midsection, was the ropey line of a healed caesarean scar. The telltale thickness said it had been used more than once.

"Did neither you nor Sarah notice the incision scar?" Sherlock asked, contempt overlaying his words.

No, they hadn't. They'd been in such a hurry, first with the dying girl, then the surprise baby, then the fractious ambulance crew. It had all been unexpected, panicked, almost surreal.

John didn't know how many truly critical situations Sherlock had been in, situations where it fell to him to take the actions, to make the decisions, that meant life-or-death, not for himself, but for others. The way he behaved - his personal recklessness, his cavalier attitude concerning the safety of others, and his general disregard for humans as a class - John felt the answer was probably not very many. Towering bloody intellect aside, Sherlock couldn't really understand what it was like.

So John just shook his head. "Someone, somewhere must have record of her, then," he said, handing Sherlock's mobile back.

"One would think," Sherlock said. But he didn't sound convinced.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

"Detective Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard," Sherlock said, flashing Lestrade's stolen warrant card. He'd shaved a bit of the posh off his accent, changed his body language just enough so that he looked and sounded like someone trying to do an impression of Sherlock Holmes, and missing by mere inches. "This is Sergeant Donovan," he went on, giving John a nod. "You're Mr. Samadezadeh?"

The man in question stood and nodded. His desk was piled high with papers and folders. "Yes."

Sherlock reached across the desk and gave Bunny O'Hare's Care Leaving Counsellor a firm policeman's handshake. "We're here about Charles O'Hare, Mr. Samadezadeh."

"Call me Sam," he said. "The boys all do. He's in London? Bloody hell." He gestured for them to sit, then sighed and seated himself. "I don't know what that boy's done now, but Bunny needs treatment, not jail time. He's a good lad, and he's been clean almost two years."

"Sorry to have to inform you, sir," John said, "but Charles was found dead this morning."

Samadezadeh leaned back in his chair, his face a mask of shock. "Oh shit. What happened? Drugs?"

"He was shot," Sherlock said. "In the face. At very close range. We're not certain of the circumstances, and there aren't any suspects at the moment, but we're trying to discern exactly what happened."

"Yes, of course," he said. "Shit. Anything I can do to help."

Sherlock spoke. "He arrived in London approximately six weeks ago, three weeks before he was due to age out of the system, am I correct?"

Samadezadeh nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Shot, really? Shit."

"Really," John said.

Sherlock asked, "Do you have any idea why he was so anxious to get away that he couldn't wait those last three weeks?"

"No, not a clue," Samadezadeh said. "I was completely surprised. Honestly, Inspector, I thought some harm had come to him. He was looking forward to getting out, being on his own, and if he'd just stayed those last few weeks -" He shook his head.

John made a show of flipping through the pages in his notebook. "And his girlfriend, what can you tell us about her, sir?"

"If he had a girlfriend, it's news to me," Samadezadeh said. "Never mentioned anyone. He wasn't really close to any of the other boys here, but you could ask round. Oh, you know, maybe he met her at his job."

"He had a job?" John asked.

"Yeah, 'course. Clients are supposed to have a job and flat when they leave the system," Samadezadeh said. "Bunny had the job and was to go look at a flat not too long before he disappeared."

"Where did he work?" John asked.

"The Djepelgesh Palace, over on Bridge Road."

"Excuse me? How do you spell-"

Samadezadeh called up the information on his computer, gave John the spelling, address, and the name of the manager. "It's a bit of a dump, really, and the food, well, if you like that sort of thing, I guess." He shrugged. "Bunny helped in the kitchen, peeling veg, washing up, did deliveries for them on his bicycle. They seemed to like him well enough, always gave good reports, said he was a good worker. You could try -"

"Yes, we'll do that." Sherlock stood and turned to leave. "Come along, Sergeant."

"Don't you want to speak to any of the other boys?" Samadezadeh asked.

"Guess not." John stood hastily, extending his hand for a quick shake. "Though we may be back. Thank you for your help. We'll be in touch. And, ah, we're sorry for you loss."

"Yeah," Samadezadeh said. "Yeah, me too."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

"So what's going on, 'Detective Inspector'?" John asked when they were out on the street.

Sherlock's lips quirked, his attention on his mobile. "Not entirely sure. We're short a few facts."

John scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, like all of them. Aren't we going to speak to the other, um, clients here?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Little point."

"They might know about the girl."

"Why would they?"

John shrugged. "Dunno. You've got a girlfriend, you brag to your mates."

Sherlock's brows rose. "Yes, I'm sure 'you' do. But Samadezadeh said he wasn't particularly close to anyone here. Since Bunny spent all his time either here or at his place of employment, he very likely met this girl at or through his job. I think we'll have better luck talking to his employer."

"Right, yes, of course," John agreed. "That makes sen-"

He was interrupted by the pinging of Sherlock's mobile. Sherlock looked at the screen, frowning.

"What's that?" John asked.

"Subcutaneous chip?" Sherlock sounded perplexed.

"What?"

Sherlock extended his phone. John read:

FOUND SOMETHING INTERESTING. SUBCUTANEOUS CHIP IN GIRL'S LEFT BUTTOCK. LIKE PETS?

IT BLEW UP. A BIT.

Molly

"It blew up 'a bit'?" John asked, alarmed. "Oh God, is Molly all right?"

Sherlock frowned at him. "She's texted me about it, ergo - " he said, then began rapid-fire texting. His expression went from blank - Sherlock's preferred mode of expressing just about anything - to infinitesimally less blank when a reply came.

"It was in the sink when it exploded. Five small pieces. She was alone. No one was injured."

"Why did -"

"There."

"There what, Sherlock?"

"There, I've asked her to save the pieces. Evidence, obviously," Sherlock said. His tone made it clear he was thinking what he usually thought - that John was an idiot. He began texting again, a different number, this time.

"Lestrade?" John asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "Mycroft. The Yard will just muck this - oh for-"

"Problem?" John asked.

Several texts were sent and exchanged. Sherlock sighed. "My brother is an arse of the first order," he said finally, his thumbs working double-time even as his mobile pinged with yet another incoming text.

"No news there, then."

"Oh!"

"What now?"

"Molly is telling me - telling 'me' - that she could lose her license for this." He turned to John. "Does she really think I am not aware of that fact?"

John looked at him. Sometimes, it was hard to separate Sherlock acting like a clueless git from Sherlock actually being a clueless git. He suspected this was a case of the latter, or at least, he hoped it was. He shook his head. "She's reminding you, you berk."

"Why? Why would I need, or want, a reminder? What business is that of mine?" Sherlock closed his eyes, exhaled harshly in that way that John found all too familiar. "She isn't stupid, so why?"

Yeah, John thought, so why? Talking to Sherlock about anything he deemed unimportant was like talking to a stubborn, deaf wall, and Sherlock deemed so very many things unimportant. Had Molly really not worked that out yet?

Since the day he'd found out about Sherlock's 'arrangement' with Molly, John had been waiting for it to collapse. It was going to - that much was obvious to anyone who could be bothered to look. And when the end came, it would not be with a whimper, but with a bang. A very, very loud bang.

Sherlock, of course, would shrug it off in a day or two, because that's what Sherlock did. In a few weeks, he'd delete it all, emerge no worse for the wear. From then on it would be 'Molly who?' if he acknowledged her existence at all.

As far as Molly was concerned, well, it was unkind, probably, and uncharitable, but there was a possibility she actually deserved what she'd get, if for no other reason than for being foolish enough to buy whatever it was Sherlock had been selling in the first place. Sherlock had used, abused, manipulated, and humiliated her for years, and infatuated or not, she should have known better. She did know better. What was that saying about smart women and foolish choices?

But Eddie - John could admit, at least to himself, that he worried about his godson. No child deserved to have to live through the complete, fucking, inevitable mess that would follow. Something so epic could not help but leave scars. At least young children were resilient and blessedly forgetful. If everyone - especially Eddie - were lucky, the end would come sooner rather than later.

Sherlock looked at him, and apparently didn't like what he saw.

Oh fuck. Sherlock was a mind-reader, and John was the worst friend ever.

"Chechen," Sherlock barked out suddenly, turned on his heel, and marched away.

John ran to catch up. "What? Chechen?"

"Djepelgesh is a Chechen delicacy - and I use the term 'delicacy' quite loosely."

"Okay."

"It's a dough-y potato-y thing," Sherlock rattled off.

"Right," John said. "Yes. Okay. So?"

Without answering, Sherlock pulled out his phone again and ducked into an odd little shop, a place that appeared to specialise in knives and/or knife sharpening, John guessed, given the sign. John made to follow him, but Sherlock held up his hand, signaling for John to wait. He came out not a full minute later, scowling at his phone, then resumed his quick pace.

All John heard of the telephone conversation was, "No, I'm not. I'm asking you as a favor. To me. All right, to John, then. You bloody well 'do' owe him. You have the resources and the - yes, yes, fine, that's fine, but don't be unnecessarily rude. Oh, of course I remember. Is this 'International Remind Sherlock of Things He's Well Aware of Day'? Of course I remember her birthday, she's my mother, too!"

Mycroft, then. John could ask, but he didn't imagine he would get a straight answer. And it probably wasn't worth trying.

Sherlock stopped abruptly, switched off his phone, and turned on him. "She isn't stupid," Sherlock said.

"Who?" John asked. "Your mother?"

"My mother?" Sherlock shook his head as if he were trying to dislodge an idiot from his brain. "What in the world has she got to do with this?"

"You said 'she,' and you were talking to Mycroft, and - did you mean Molly? No, of course she isn't stupid. I never said - "

"But you do think it, John. You think it all the time."

"But I don't -"

"Stop it," Sherlock ordered.

"Right." John licked his lips, nervously. "Right, sorry, I'm sorry- "

Sherlock shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and resumed walking. "Oh, shut up, John."

"Right. Yes. Shutting up."

John shut up.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

If an afterlife existed, Mycroft Holmes was reasonably certain he had secured his place in it. He'd roused himself from reasonably pressing matters of state to personally help his little bother, entirely out of the kindness of his heart and the depths of his familial loyalty.

That, and because every other word out of Sherlock's mouth lately was a plea to be allowed unrestricted access to his trust fund. His lab equipment was outdated. He had unexpected expenses. His son needed...things. On and on and on Sherlock went.

Forget the fact that, if he would only take Mycroft up on one of his many offers of work befitting an adult, Sherlock would not only have no problem making ends meet, but he would have access to all the state-of-the-art equipment his depraved little heart desired.

It was only because Sherlock deigned not simply to text, but to follow up with an actual telephone call, and had asked rather nicely - nicely for Sherlock, at any rate - that Mycroft had chosen to grant Sherlock's wish. That, and Sherlock's reminder that John had done him a good turn or two, and that this was an easy way to repay that debt.

The begging hadn't hurt, either.

Mycroft opened the door to the mortuary, and was nearly knocked down by the smell. Ghastly, as putrefaction always was, sickly sweet and nauseating. His lip curled in distaste, which was more than he liked to give away, but one's body occasionally made its own choices.

"Oh. Mycroft. Um, hello."

There, at the far end of the room, suited up from head to toe like a blood-spattered apiarist, was Dr. Hooper. No longer the scattered little waif he'd met all those months ago, she was standing over a naked female body, the subject's ribs splayed and the top of its head removed.

"Dr. Hooper," he greeted her. "I am here at Sherlock's request, although I must say, he was somewhat vague as to why he needed me here so quickly."

Dr. Hooper covered the body, set down the tool she was holding - some sort of electrical saw - and pulled off her blood-speckled face shield. She tugged off her gloves one by one, giving him a long, hard look as she did so.

Dr. Hooper didn't like him. This, of course, was not news.

"He told me you'd be coming," she said.

"You mean, he warned you," Mycroft said.

Dr. Hooper said nothing.

Mycroft was the master of his façade. Under no circumstances was he dropping it before his brother's - paramour, he supposed. The paramour who despised him.

"Dr. Hooper, no, Molly, you are the mother of Sherlock's child, and therefore my nephew's mother, my daughters' cousin's mother, and ever shall be. The fact that Sherlock and I are brothers is rather permanent, as well. Therefore, you and I are stuck, in some capacity, with one another. I realise we did not get off to the best of starts, and I take full responsibility for that -"

"You ought to," she said.

He nodded once. "And I do. At any rate, wouldn't it be best if we were to find a way to get along, for the sake of all concerned?"

Her mouth set in a hard line, Molly gave him a long, appraising look, and suddenly he understood what his brother saw in her: a woman who opened people's heads with gardening tools while half-eaten biscuits and a tepid cup of tea sat not ten feet away was right up Sherlock's alley. He refused, however, to imagine sexual congress between the two of them. Completely and utterly refused.

"Yes, fine," Molly said at last, the tension in her spine easing somewhat, although she was still on her guard. "I've bagged the chips-"

"Chips?" Mycroft asked. "Sherlock led me to believe there was only one, and that it had been damaged by some self-destruct mechanism."

"When I texted him, there was only the one," she said. She led him to the work top by the scrub sink, where two small zip-top bags waited. "This one, the one that blew up, was situated in the lower left quadrant of her right buttock, but I found this one in her left arm-pit after I sent that text."

"I see. Are there more?" Mycroft asked.

"X-rays say no," Molly said. "I think it might be exposure to air that triggers the destruct reaction, but then, that doesn't explain why the second one is still intact, does it?"

"No, it does not," Mycroft agreed. There were five miniscule shards of twisted metal in the first bag, and a whole implant, approximately 5 to 6 millimeters in length, in the other. Both looked very much like those used in pets, but they were far larger, and far less sophisticated, than those implanted in top operatives. And those which were implanted in spies - when those blew up, Mycroft knew first-hand - they blew up spectacularly. "Perhaps the self-destruct mechanism in this one was simply faulty."

"Yes, perhaps," she agreed quietly.

"And you haven't alerted Sherlock to this. Why?" he asked.

She looked away. "I don't want to, um, to disturb him."

That was odd, Mycroft thought. Perhaps Sherlock had snapped at her?

Good lord, what was wrong with him? Of course Sherlock had snapped at her - that was what Sherlock did.

"Well, thank you, -" he began.

"I'm not - this isn't," she interrupted, then took a deep breath. "Mycroft, these are evidence in an investigation, possibly a homicide investigation," she blurted out.

Mycroft nodded. "Yes, I am aware of that."

"They - this - this should be turned over to the police," she continued. "I - I could lose my license for this."

"That won't happen, Dr Hooper," Mycroft said, surprised that she was concerned. How many times had she served as an accomplice to Sherlock's less-than-legal activities, not a few of which had involved cadavers being reduced to their component parts?

"Yes, but - but if you have them, if someone finds out you have them, you could be in trouble as well. Um."

Mycroft felt himself grin. She was worried about Mycroft having difficulties over this? How utterly adorable. He wondered, vaguely, how she thought he earned his living. "You can trust me in this matter," he assured. "Neither of us shall have any difficulty as a result of your helping with this inquiry. Nor will Sherlock or Dr. Watson. I give you my word."

She nodded. "Sherlock said that, and I - I do trust Sherlock."

That, history suggested, was probably an ill-advised position to take, Mycroft supposed, but there was nothing to be gained from arguing the point. "Naturally."

"And he, he trusts you," she finished, sounding more perplexed than anything.

"As can you," he said.

Molly seemed to consider this. Then, apparently having made up her mind, she nodded. "Yes. All right. Yes. Oh. There's something else, something interesting, maybe pertinent," she said. She waved in the general direction of the corpse. "I can show you, if you don't mind. Um. Some people do."

"Show me," he said with all the imperiousness he could muster.

Molly put on a fresh pair of gloves, re-situated her splatter guard. "See here?" She pointed. "The victim's vocal chords were cut, surgically, a number of years ago, I'd say. She would have been a - a very young girl, no more than ten, perhaps eleven."

"That is, indeed, interesting," Mycroft said. "Is there some medical reason why such a procedure would be carried out?"

Molly shook her head, flipped up the guard. "No. None. It was done to this girl for the same reason vets do it to yappy dogs."

"To ensure permanent silence," Mycroft supplied.

Molly nodded.

"I see." Mycroft wondered just what in the hell Sherlock had stumbled into this time. "Well, thank you for your help and co-operation with this. I will be in touch." He walked to the door, then turned. "And do contact Sherlock immediately - immediately, Dr. Hooper, - and let him know about the rest of your findings. I can assure you, however vexed he may have seemed, he'll welcome the interruption if it means fresh data."

Molly nodded. "Yes, of course, you're right. I probably should, yes."

Feeling magnanimous, Mycroft added, "And don't tell him you made me aware of this information before you told him. You know how he can be. Good day, Dr. Hooper."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

As Mr. Samadezadeh had hinted, and Sherlock had expected, the Djepelgesh Palace was anything but palatial. 'Cramped,' 'dingy,' and 'dodgy' were more apt descriptors, and while he wouldn't have minded taking swabs of every surface in the place and discovering what wondrously toxic horrors they held, Sherlock certainly was not about to suggest anyone eat off any of them.

Personal interviews, Sherlock knew, were often the least efficient method of gathering information, particularly if the interviewee was less than cooperative, or, for circumstantial reasons, less than likely to be forthcoming. Nonetheless, he spoke with Bunny's former employer and fellow employees, and sent John, with whom he was annoyed and whose fault this entire matter was anyway, to sift through the skip.

"Anything of value?" Sherlock asked half an hour later when he returned to the alley.

John climbed up on something and peeked out over the rim. "Define 'of value,'" he said. "What am I even looking for?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Cash, coins, jewellery."

John raised one eyebrow and it was all Sherlock could do not to grin.

"Nothing like that, I'm afraid," John said. "I can tell you this skip hasn't been emptied since Saturday, and that they go through an awful lot of potatoes."

"'Awful' being the operative word," Sherlock said, his lip curling slightly. "Oh, do climb out of there," he said, offering a hand, then thinking better of it. "You smell of - well, let's just say you smell and leave it at that, shall we?"

"Yeah, let's do that." John swung his leg out of the skip and landed easily on the ground next to it. "Any luck inside?"

"Some. I spoke to the manager and the cook," Sherlock said. "Bunny was a good lad, hard working, et cetera et cetera, the usual unhelpful drivel. I obtained a copy of his time sheet for the last month he was here, a list of his usual deliveries, most of which appear to be offices or factories. The local Chechen community is small, but not small enough, I'm afraid."

"Right." John brushed something that had once, perhaps, been edible from his trouser leg. "Did they know anything about the girl?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Not much. They knew he had met someone, and they suspect she worked at one of his usual delivery spots, but that seems to have been mainly speculation."

"Right." John's brow creased in thought. "Sherlock, what's going on here?"

Sherlock had no immediate answer for that. What John had presented as a simple case of 'name the dead addict' had turned into -

Into something else. Something far more complicated. Something, he now suspected, far more sinister.

"I am not entirely -" Sherlock began.

He was interrupted by the sound of bicycle tires crunching pebbles and heading toward them.

"I dropped my keys at the weekend while roaring drunk," Sherlock said quietly, knowing John would understand. "Do help me look for them."

John, used to this routine, immediately began 'searching' for the imaginary keys.

A young man on beat-up green bicycle pulled to a stop by the back door. Sherlock observed that he had a full, sealed carrier bag stamped with the Djepelgesh Palace logo, that he carried into the café with him.

The screen door banged shut and the sound of raised voices followed - Sherlock recognized the manager and the cook yelling at each other and, presumably, the delivery boy. Less than a minute later, the boy, clearly disgusted and not a little upset, emerged again, and swung the carrier bag into the skip with grim determination, paying Sherlock and John, and their cover story, no attention at all. He remounted his bike and took off in a spray of gravel.

John and Sherlock looked at one another.

"Must be that sort of alley," John said.

"Judging by the used condoms and puddles of dried vomit, I'd say you're right."

John's expression froze. "Oh. He just threw a full order in there, didn't he?" he asked.

"Appears so, yes. Why?"

John shook his head. "Nothing. It's nothing."

But Sherlock knew that expression. For all he failed to observe, John still caught more than most people. And he had remarkably good instincts. "It's clearly not nothing," Sherlock said. "Now, what is it?"

John was hauling himself back up into the skip. "I just -" he said before his head disappeared.

"You just what?" Sherlock stood on tiptoe, peering inside. The contents looked every bit as appetizing as they smelled, which was not at all.

John dug through the rubbish. "I noticed before, there were three full bags of food in here, like the one that boy just chucked in," he said. "I didn't think anything of it, but, yeah, here. Bit of an address on this receipt, this one's a mess, but there're a few letters, and yes, this one, it's not smeared too badly." He ripped these off their respective carriers bag, then compared them. "4689 Denton Road. Same address on all three, probably on that fourth one, too."

"And that was one of Bunny's usual deliveries," Sherlock said, taking the receipts from John. "Three lunch specials, everyday, covered by credit card. Standing order."

"Doesn't look like it's standing anymore, though, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Sherlock agreed. He thumbed his phone. "Google says it's a small factory in a more or less deserted industrial park, 6 point 3 miles to the north."

"Reckon it's worth a look?"

"At this point, yes, I believe so." It was another long shot, but it was all they appeared to have. He tucked his phone back into his pocket.

John was still in the skip, his arms folded, his chin resting on his forearms as if he were waiting for Sherlock to tell him a story. Why? Sherlock would never understand this man's mind, never.

"Oh for God's sake, John, quit playing in the rubbish. We've an appointment."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Sustain II: Refrain (3/3)  
><strong>Authors:<strong> MaybeAmanda and onemillionnine  
><strong>Rating: <strong>NC17/Adult  
><strong>Dramatis Personae:<strong> Sherlock, John, Molly, Sarah, Lestrade, Mycroft, OMCs, OFCs  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Sherlock/Molly, John/Sarah  
><strong>Word count:<strong> Total 22,000 This part: ~8,000  
><strong>Summary:<strong> He could fix this.

**Warnings: **Consensual sex, off-screen violence, disturbing themes.

**Beta:** Courtesy of the lovely and talented what_alchemy

**BritPicking: **Courtesy of the vivacious and voluptuous non_canonical

**Disclaimer:** Son of fanfic of fanfic. Not ours, not really theirs, either. BBC, Moffat, Gatiss, ACD, PBS, Cumberbatch, Freeman, etc, etc. No money being made on this side.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock Holmes was bloody brilliant, there was no mistaking that. But there were some things John Watson knew at least as well as Sherlock did, and some things he knew far better. The smell of death, of blood and gunfire, of bowels unleashed and starting to digest the body from the inside out - these things he knew like a man knows an ex-wife.

And so, John saw the blood and brains and shit and death even before he saw the blood and brains and shit and death. He saw it as soon as they forced open the warehouse window, pried off the metal grate, and the smell hit him.

Which wasn't to say he could make heads or tails of what he was seeing.

Three men in a row, big men, hanging, crucified and partially disemboweled, from the rafters. It fit no paradigm, no pattern he was aware of. And as soon as he saw them, his mind went inconveniently blank.

Beside him, Sherlock was very still. Finally, Sherlock cleared his throat and said, "Well, John, I can honestly say that I was not expecting this."

That was enough to snap John out of his daze. The crosses had been hoisted, John estimated, about five feet off the ground. Judging by the stench and the blood and the flies, these men had been dead at least four days, which fit. "And exactly what the hell is this?"

"I'd say three crucified Chechens, each just slightly smaller than the average lorry, and each, very likely, with the mental capacity of a bowl of shredded cabbage."

"Chechens? Because they ordered from that café?"

"_Café_ remains a generous word, but yes, who else would?"

John couldn't find fault with that. He looked around.

Except for the corpses, the building was clean and very well maintained. There were the boxes one would expect, but not many, and they all appeared to John to be old, as if they'd come with the place and been left behind by who ever had had the building before.

Sherlock circled the suspended bodies, his eyes flicking from point to point, cataloguing, John knew, assessing, synthesising. As always, he was careful not to disturb any evidence that might help solve the crime, and indifferent to contaminating any evidence he knew would yield nothing of value or interest. John wished he understood how Sherlock always seemed to know one from the other at a glance.

"Four days dead?" Sherlock said at last.

"Based on the undelivered food and the state of these bodies, yeah," John answered.

"So dead before Bunny, then?"

John nodded. "I would say so, yeah. You think there's a connection." It wasn't a question.

Sherlock stopped pacing then, went very still. "See what's in those other rooms," he said very quietly, waving to his left.

John looked around the first room. Big, surprisingly bright, it looked like a combination dormitory and gym. A quick inventory revealed six treadmills, two Wii gaming systems and dozens of games, a fridge filled with sour milk, softening fruits and vegetables, and leftovers from the Djepelgesh Palace going off, a cooker that looked to never have been used, three sofas, three arm chairs. No art or even posters on the walls. No computers or laptops. No reading materials in view.

The next room contained twelve hospital-style beds, cupboards filled with women's clothing, non-descript hoodies, jogging tops, track suits in various sizes, all more-or-less freshly washed, all smelling of the same laundry soap. Bedroom slippers, yes; shoes, no.

The last of the three rooms was tiled, floor to ceiling, and filled with medical equipment. And not, he noted immediately, not just any medical equipment: a fully equipped operating theatre. Wheeled cryogenic freezers, open and emptied. A state-of-the-art ultrasound machine. Centrifuge.

What the hell?

John walked through the suite, examining the machines without touching them, trying to wrap his head around what these three rooms - and the slaughterhouse/warehouse - had in common. Try as he might, nothing made sense.

Sherlock stopped in the doorway, scanned the room. "Oh," he said. He actually looked surprised.

"I'm sure all of this makes perfect sense to you," John said, "but the best I can come up with is horror film shoot gone very wrong, or low-end holiday camp for medical fetishists."

"Both excellent guesses," Sherlock said. "Both wrong."

"Of course," John agreed. "I thought treatment facility at first, something private and below the radar -"

"- and catering only to females, younger ones by the look of the cupboards in dormitory," Sherlock said.

John nodded, "Yes, but all the exercise equipment, the utter lack of junk food in the fridge and cupboards, combined with all this obstetrical equipment, makes me think it might be, I don't know, what they used to call a home for unwed mothers."

Sherlock nodded. "Very good, John. Very good. But?"

"But - but it's not that, is it?" John said. "This level of security - the barred windows, the steel doors, key-coded locks - doesn't make sense. It looks like they wanted to keep someone out very badly."

"I believe," Sherlock said, "it's more a matter of wanting to keep someone in very badly. Or approximately twelve someones, judging by the number of beds."

"Right," John said. "Who? And why?"

Instead of answering, Sherlock grabbed a pair of nitrile gloves and a face mask off an instrument tray, and charged out of the room.

John, always able to take a hint, grabbed gloves and a mask for himself, and followed.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock had made note of the equipment at the rear of the warehouse when they'd been attempting to gain lawful, then unlawful, access to the building. He hadn't accorded any significance to any of it, though, until they'd discovered the bodies. Or, he now thought, the lack of bodies.

"What's this? An incinerator?" John asked.

"A cold one, yes," Sherlock said, running a bare hand over the bottom and sides. He pulled his picks from his coat pocket and went to work on the padlock holding the door closed. "Judging by the state of these hinges and the more-or-less fresh pile of rust and paint flakes here -" he pointed to the ground "- it hasn't been in regular use in months, more likely years. But the gas line has been maintained and inspected within the last six months, as that tag indicates. Going by the trail footprints leading from that door to this point and back again, and going by the weather for this area in recent days, I'd say it was used within the last week or so."

Following Sherlock's lead, John tugged on his surgical gloves. "And what do you think they've been incinerating?" he asked. "Records of some sort? Evidence?"

The lock popped open in Sherlock's hand, and he swung the creaky door open. At that moment, he had a some evidence, a few facts, and the kernel of a theory, but not enough to share. "Something like that," he said.

John nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

Sherlock slipped the surgical mask over his mouth and nose, pinched it tight. "Check out that skip." He pointed to the large metal container. "And keep watch."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

According to the European Waste Incineration Directive, an industrial furnace meant for rubbish could scrape by the approval process by hitting 870 C for all of 2 seconds. That was fine for most of the materials an incinerator such as this one was designed for - food waste, cardboard, wood. Not nearly long enough, or hot enough, to quickly and cleanly dispose of a body quickly, though. Or, as Sherlock now suspected, several bodies.

Most people believed cremation reduced a body to a pile of tidy grey ash. As was so often the case, reality was a great deal messier. One invariably wound up with a few kilograms of charred, desiccated bone fragments which had to be mechanically pulverised before Great Aunt Hildegard could be scooped into her eternal resting place. When done properly, there was almost no chance of wresting usable DNA from any of the cremains.

In this case, though, there could be a great deal of evidence left behind. He just had to find it.

He shone his torch inside the cavernous chamber. As expected, the furnace was full of burnt material. It was impossible to know how long it had been left running, of course, but even a unit of this size took time to cool completely.

He pulled out one of the small zip top bags he habitually carried and scooped as much ash as it would hold into it, then slipped it back into his pocket. And then he did it again.

Sherlock turned around, climbed into the oven so that he was facing the door, careful to keep his mask tight over his mouth and nose. He paused for a moment and thought. If he were attempting to reduce a number of bodies to unidentifiable dust in a furnace not designed for that specific task, and to do it swiftly and efficiently, he'd begin with dismemberment and use an accelerant. There was, however, no evidence of either. That suggested that the bodies had simply been pushed into the furnace, one by one, perhaps with some sort of implement, more likely by hand. If this method had been employed, Sherlock reasoned, the last bodies shoved in would be closer to the front. There was, therefore, a chance of finding less charred remains pushed up under the lip of the opening.

Torch held in his teeth through the surgical mask, Sherlock went to work. He ran his fingers very carefully under and around the metal gasket surrounding the door. Anything he might find - teeth were most probable - was likely to be both very small and very brittle. The gloves, though necessary, deadened his sense of touch somewhat, and he didn't want to miss anything.

Sherlock attempted to reconstruct the events that had occurred here. The victims were likely shot, given the number of firearms in the warehouse and the spent casings he'd found. There hadn't been any obvious blood, but he hadn't had time to investigate thoroughly and every serial killer and mass murderer worth his or her salt knew one could do wonders with enough plastic sheeting. Then, very likely, the bodies would have been carried out, one by one, and shoved into the furnace. Once all the bodies were inside, the door would have been secured, the gas turned on, the flame started, and -

- someone had, at some point, turned the gas off, he now realized.

One of the men inside, who'd been subsequently killed? Killed to hide a crime, or killed in retribution? Either seemed possible. Or had it been someone else, someone who had been sent to check in on the operation when communications had broken down and found much the same thing he and John had?

Data. He needed more data. He had to -

Ah. There. His heart beat in his ears, and a flood of new ideas, new possibilities, seized him as his fingers brushed against - something. Something under the gasket, something small and solid. Something not a tooth.

He climbed out, his prize clutched carefully between finger and thumb.

John was standing there, his own surgical mask pulled down under his chin. "Nothing in the skip but rubbish. What's that?" he asked. "What did you find?"

In the light, Sherlock saw exactly what it was. Something that should not, under any circumstances, have survived what he was sure had been a make-shift crematorium.

Shorter than his thumb, more fragile than glass, a bone - a piece of cartilage, really - confirmed his deductions.

He slipped it into a bag before it could break, or John could see it properly.

"Evidence," he said.

It was a tiny human femur.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

"Welcome back." John looked up from the magazine he was reading. "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to be joining us again tonight. Water?"

Sherlock blinked, took in his surroundings. They were on the train, then. Night had fallen, and they were on the way to London. They were, by his estimation, about 20 minutes out.

He reached out and took the bottle John offered, twisted off the cap, took a large gulp. "Thank you."

"Thought you might be thirsty by now. You haven't spoken in hours."

Sherlock nodded, took another drink. "I've been thinking. Obviously."

"Obviously." John closed his magazine and set it on the seat beside him. "So, have it sorted? Ready to explain it to me now?"

The answer to that was 'yes.' Sherlock did have it sorted, most of it, anyway. Some of it was supposition, some reasoning, some the guesswork he claimed never to employ. Some of it was simply as plain as day. And he could explain it, certainly.

John wasn't going to like the explanation, though. And, as was usually the case, John was going to blame Sherlock for the explanation John didn't like, as if, somehow, Sherlock was solely to blame for the truth being true. Generally, when that happened, when Sherlock was forced to spell out something John deemed unacceptable, John yelled at him for a good few minutes, then punched him, or tried. Sherlock had no doubt that, given John's over-involvement in this matter, this was going to be one of those times.

"You're familiar with the term _puppy farm_?" Sherlock asked at last.

John tilted his head to the right the way he did when Sherlock said something he wasn't expecting. "Yes?"

Sherlock looked out the window. "I believe the operation we found in Birmingham was, essentially, a human puppy farm."

John stared, his mouth agape. Sherlock congratulated himself on having been right about John's reaction, Pyrrhic victory though it was. "Human puppy farm?"

Sherlock ploughed ahead. "Yes, obviously. As I am sure you are aware, there's quite a market for healthy, Caucasian infants, particularly males. Rumors have circulated about made-to-order babies for years, but it was never a matter to which I had any first-hand exposure, and to which, subsequently, I paid no mind. But you saw the evidence with your own eyes, John - young women, a number of them, obviously being held, most likely against their will, in a clean, comfortable, if intensely secure facility, watched over by three slabs of granite costumed as guards, exercise equipment, so-called healthy foods, but no television, no internet, no cell phone reception - I know, I tried - not even a land-line, so, no contact with the outside world. Obstetrical equipment, surgical equipment, neonatal units, cryogenic freezers. Bunny O'Hare delivered take-away to the security guards, standing order, paid by credit card, so the guards themselves probably didn't have an easy way to communicate with the world outside those four walls. Perhaps she approached him, or he approached her, how it occurred is immaterial. Either way, young Bunny became enamored of one of the 'factory components,' as it were. Samadezadeh was right about Bunny; he was smart, smart enough to get the girl out of there, just not smart enough to stay off heroin, and not smart enough to hide successfully over the long term."

John blinked twice. "So the girl, the one who died, you think, you think she was a - a - no, Sherlock, no, it doesn't make sense."

"In what way?" Sherlock asked.

"She was a junkie. She had track marks, and the child showed signs -"

"Did you find heroin on her person? Syringes? Any paraphernalia?"

"No, but -"

"She was a broodmare, John. I suspect they used drugs to bring these girls in and out of cycle. Further, she'd had at least two earlier pregnancies, so there would have been blood tests, intravenous administration of fluids, sedatives, anesthetic, vitamins, et cetera, old needle punctures overlain with new. "

"R-right." John nodded, still wide-eyed. "Right. Okay. And the guards?"

"It appears either the competition or the bosses decided, in a very literal way, to eliminate this wing of their operation. Either the guards did something unforgivable, probably letting this girl escape, or they were victims of rivals, and the girl's escape was incidental, but I favour the former, cleaner, more elegant, makes more sense. The killing and operation both bear the hallmarks of organized crime, and mob discipline, as you are well-aware, tends to be somewhat heavy-handed. The display of the bodies, along with the level of overkill, strongly suggests that someone was meant to learn a lesson."

John sat in silence a moment. "So where are all these girls? Where are their babies?"

Sherlock hesitated. Despite the frequency with which it happened, he did not enjoy being to be yelled at or punched. And despite the frequency with which it happened, he didn't like having John angry with him. "You already know, John."

John ran his hand over his mouth. "God. You mean -?"

"The incinerator was full of burnt material." He pulled a sealed zip top bag from his pocket, handed it to John. "I am quite certain this will prove to be mainly, if not entirely, human ash."

John held the bag in the palm of his left hand, covered his mouth with his right. Sherlock understood this much: John was shocked. After all he'd seen, both in battle and in life, John still had the capacity to be stunned by the evil of the world. It was an attribute Sherlock thought he should envy.

"Does it make it better or worse if I say it appears they were all dead before they were incinerated?"

John's head shot up. "What?"

"The girls - the women. The evidence strongly suggests they weren't burnt alive," he said. Something felt tight in his chest, but he pressed on. "I found only three bullet casings in the warehouse, but they would have been shot first, execution-style. Quick and efficient. They wouldn't have suffered."

John gaped at him, then let out a broken laugh. "Jesus Christ, there's no better or worse, here, Sherlock," he said. "You do understand that, don't you? It's - it's just bloody, fucking, full-stop horrible."

"Yes. Of course," Sherlock said. Of course he understood. The whole business of it was horrible - exploitation, human trafficking, forced enslavement, the selling of - of -

He opened the bottle, took another long drink. Of course he understood.

The train rattled on, and they sat in silence, John staring at the sack of grey ash, Sherlock staring at John. John had asked Sherlock for one thing: a name. To date, Sherlock had delivered exactly nothing. He was out of leads, out of ideas. He trusted the Birmingham police to find exactly nothing, perhaps less even then he and John had. The entire matter was beginning to feel like a loss. He hated losing.

John's text alert buzzed, pulling them both from their thoughts. John slipped the dust in his pocket - absentmindedly, Sherlock saw, and not in a deliberate attempt at theft or subterfuge - and produced his phone.

John read the text and frowned. "Have you turned your mobile off?"

"Turned my mobile off?" Sherlock asked. "Have we met?"

John's lips curled in a wry grin. "It's Molly. She's been trying to reach you."

Sherlock pulled his phone out, scowled at the screen. "'Network down?' Oh, splendid!"

John chuckled humourlessly, thumbed the keys. "I've told her you're alive."

Sherlock nodded once. She would have finished the autopsy hours ago, and had no doubt texted to say that the unidentified dead girl remained both unidentified and dead. Unless this girl had conveniently had her name and National Insurance Number tattooed on her backside, Molly wouldn't have found anything of significance. "I doubt that was why she was trying to contact me," Sherlock answered.

John blinked at him once. "Right. Well, I told her, anyway."

"All right, Yes. Thank you," he said.

They were on the outskirts of London when John said, voice subdued, "He's not, you know."

Sherlock's expression must have conveyed his confusion. "Who isn't what?"

"Caucasian," John said. "The baby, that, that girl's baby. He is, well, mixed, probably."

"Probably?"

John's brows pinched together. "The mother, she's, she was, well, European, I guess. Pale, light eyed. But that baby, no."

Sherlock sat a little straighter. That was unexpected. "Neonates, particularly premature neonates, can appear discoloured due to circulatory issues," he said.

"Yes." John scratched the side of his neck. "Yes, they certainly can. Which still doesn't make that child white."

Sherlock sat in silence a moment, considering the implications of this new bit of information. "Show me," he said.

"Show you what?"

"Don't be obtuse, John. The photo. The one you're pretending you don't have on your phone. Any of the half dozen or so I am sure you've taken. Sentiment, right? Show me."

John shot him filthy look, but it hardly mattered. Sherlock's synapses fired, half of them readying arguments with which to dismiss John's position, the other half slotting this new information, should it prove true, into the known facts.

John handed him the phone. "Only three."

Sherlock squinted. He turned the phone to the left, then the right, then the left again. He centred it, scrolled through all three screens. "I see a mass of medical equipment, a blue knit cap, and what looks to be an ape's foot." He looked at John. "A very small ape, mind you."

John shrugged. "Technically true, that."

The train pulled into the station. Sherlock stood, straightened his jacket. "Barts, then?" he asked.

"Barts? Why?"

"I want to have a look at your baby."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

It was well after visiting hours, but no one questioned their presence in the hospital, no one asked why they were there or where they were going. Sherlock stood, with John at his side, and considered the baby for a good, long time. There were tubes running up his nose and into his thigh, and an IV fed fluid into the large vein in his head. He was so small, this nameless child who belonged to no one. Less than half the size Edmund had been at birth, and Edmund had been ridiculously, impossibly small.

He watched John's reflection in the glass. John was wearing his military face, the expression that said nothing and no one could faze him, just move along, nothing to see here. Sherlock, however, knew it for what it really was, as John turned it on Sherlock often enough: John was steeling himself for disappointment and pain.

Sherlock focused on the child again, and reminded himself the world was full of children who would not live to see their first birthday. This was merely one among many.

And John had been correct. The child was not Caucasian, not completely. The mother was decidedly of European stock, and Bunny had been, too. While it was possible recessive traits were at work here, it seemed an unnecessarily complicated explanation. If the girl and Bunny had only been in London a few weeks, it was more likely that Bunny had not been the child's father, that he'd been 'rescuing' the girl from that facility, that she'd been impregnated months before.

But the question nagged: why make a mixed race child to order, when mixed race children in care went begging for families? It made no sense.

It would take a good month for a return on a DNA analysis, not that he expected it to reveal anything of significance. He had no doubt, from the medical equipment at the warehouse and from Molly's autopsy of the child's mother, that someone had been 'manufacturing' infants for sale. He also had no doubt that this child was a product of that facility. So how did it all go together?

He didn't know. And oh, how he hated not knowing.

There were, literally, no more clues. He had reached a cul-de-sac. There was nothing more he could do. He hated to acknowledge failure, but it was impossible to do otherwise. The one time John had made a request of him, and he had failed. He had failed his friend, and he had failed this child, too, a child who would not likely live long enough to offer any recrimination. Still, Sherlock would remember on his behalf.

"Well?" John finally asked.

Sherlock was watching the large vein in the child's forehead throb. "I don't know," he said. "I'm sorry, but I simply do not know."

John seemed to deflate. "It was a long shot," he said, sounding resigned. "You can't know everything. I appreciate that you tried, though, yeah?"

Sherlock studied John's reflection again. He was suffering, that much was obvious, even to Sherlock. Now was the time for him to offer some solace, to show John support. That what friends did. "Sarah isn't the only one who's grown unreasonably attached, is she?" he asked.

John shook his head, folded his arms across his chest. "I guess not." He closed his eyes briefly, let out a long, slow breath. "We've been trying for months, you know," he began, "nearly a year. What am I saying? Of course you know. Probably figured it out from my shoelaces."

No, Sherlock hadn't known. He said nothing.

"We're neither of us young," John continued, "but we're both healthy, and it shouldn't be this bloody difficult."

"You enjoy sex," Sherlock said. "I can't imagine you find the task that odious."

John grinned. "No, of course I don't, you git. It's just - difficult - seeing someone you love disappointed over and over and knowing there's nothing you can do."

That, Sherlock did know. If he knew how to do anything, anything at all, it was disappoint. "Yes, I'm sure it is."

"And now this," he said, with a nod toward the baby in the isolet. "I hate like hell to have to disappoint her again."

Sherlock nodded once, cleared his throat. Support. Yes, he could offer support. "I'm sure, John, when the time comes, Molly will volunteer her services."

John's head snapped toward him. "What?"

"Perhaps we'll learn something from his autopsy."

"His autopsy?" John blinked at him. "He's alive, Sherlock."

"Yes, now, obviously," Sherlock said quickly, "but you can't imagine he'll live long."

John licked his lips. "Can't I?"

"Perhaps you can," Sherlock replied carefully, "but it's a mistake. You should make every effort to -"

"Why," John interrupted him, "Sherlock, why do you have to be this way?"

"Which way?" Sherlock shot back. "Honest? Realistic?"

"No," John said. "A fucking cunt."

It was Sherlock's turn to be surprised. "I've upset you."

"Oh, do you really think so?" John's words dripped sarcasm. "Have I ever, would I ever, in my life, wish Edmund dead?"

Sherlock took a step back. What was John talking about? "What? No."

"And do you suppose I would wish any child dead?"

"No, of course - "

"No, you're right, I wouldn't, because, unlike you, Sherlock, I am not a complete fucking coward."

"Excuse me?"

John moved forward, crowding into Sherlock's space. "You're the biggest coward I've ever met. You hide behind your bloody intellect and look down at the rest of the world and tell yourself you're too good for us, don't you? But that's only because you already know the truth, and that's that the world doesn't need or want you. You're not too good for us, Sherlock. You're not bloody good enough."

Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't genuinely disagree with the sentiment - he'd thought it himself, and not infrequently. But what had he done to bring this on now?

Oh, of course. He'd told John the truth. Still a mistake, apparently.

John was furious. Sherlock had inadvertently wounded him, and like any wounded animal, John lashed out, a reflex with which Sherlock was all too familiar. But John was his friend, his only friend, so Sherlock tamped down his own immediate reaction - to retaliate - and spoke calmly. "John, please. You are being irrational."

"Am I?" John barked back.

"Yes, you are," Sherlock answered levelly. "You know as well as I do that this is hopeless. Further, you know sentimental attachments to hopeless causes are pointless, illogical, and ultimately lead only to suffering."

Breathing heavily, John looked at him as though weighing Sherlock's worth. Finally, he squinted at Sherlock, pig-eyed. "And who'd know better?" he asked with a sneer.

"John -"

"Right, then. That's me." He turned abruptly and headed down the corridor.

"John? Where are you going?"

John turned around, but kept walking backward. "Delete me, Sherlock," he said. "Just - just fucking delete me."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

John Watson let himself into his flat, kicked off and lined up his shoes, put his keys in the dish on the hall table, and sat heavily on the sofa. The Tube ride had given him a chance to cool off a bit, but only a bit. He was too keyed-up to sleep, too tired to think. Something to drink, perhaps, tea or beer, but he couldn't decide which, and he didn't want to wake Sarah fetching either. So he sat in the dark, arms crossed over his chest, head tipped back, eyes closed, and willed his mind to go blank.

"Hey," Sarah called from the bedroom a few moments later. "You're home."

"Sorry, love," John replied, "didn't mean to wake you."

Sarah flipped on the lights and came to sit beside him, still dressed in the clothes she'd been wearing that morning. "I was just dozing," she said. "Waiting up for you."

"You needn't have done that." She looked tired and worried and somehow it made her beautiful.

"So?" she asked.

John put on his bravest face before he answered. "Nothing. Sorry."

Sarah shrugged apologetically, like she'd been hoping for better, but expecting worse. "And how're you?"

John ran his hands over his face. "Aside from wondering how I can get away with bludgeoning my best mate to death, I'm terrific."

"Oh dear." Sarah ran her fingers through his hair, and John leaned into her touch. "After all these cases, John Watson, you must know how to get rid of a body without a trace by now."

"S'true," he said.

"And if you did it right, there'd be no Sherlock to work it out."

"Perfect crime. Brilliant. What's that you smell of?"

Sarah worked her fingers round to the back of his scalp. "Probably Eddie," she said. "He's a snuggler."

He sniffed again. "Suits you," he said, then winced. Yes, idiot, perfect thing to tell your wife, the one you can't seem to get pregnant. Well done.

"So what did Sherlock do?" Sarah asked. "Or do I want to know?"

John sighed. "He was just being so very, very Sherlock." He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "I just - he has a child of his own, you know? You'd think - you'd think he'd have a bit more bloody compassion."

"I'm not sure he's capable," she replied.

"I'm not either." John closed his eyes. "I guess I want him to stop being Sherlock. Which is a bit stupid, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't say stupid. But it seems a hopeless cause."

"And we all know hopeless causes are pointless, illogical, and ultimately lead to suffering," he muttered in reply.

"What's that?"

John opened his eyes again, dry-scrubbed his face. "Nothing. Nothing. I just - I think I need a break from playing silly buggers with Mr. Sensitivity, yeah?"

Sarah's brows rose. "Permanently?"

John shrugged, sighed. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Up to you," Sarah said. "I rather like having you about."

"I rather like being about." He wanted, at that moment, nothing more than to forget the things he'd seen that day, forget the things he now knew that he could never, ever un-know. Wanted to climb into his own bed with his own wife and not think about dead girls or lost children or hopeless causes or how he was powerless in the face of any of them. He caught up her hand in his own and squeezed it tightly. "Marrying you was the smartest thing I've done in my entire life, you do know that?"

"Did you just work that out?" Sarah said, laying her head on his shoulder. "I've known that for ages."

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sherlock spent hours in the lab at Barts pretending he was working, researching, thinking - doing anything he could to figure out a means by which to repair this situation. He could fix this.

He could. He could. He cou-

No. No, he couldn't. He'd failed John, and in failing him, driven him away. John had ordered Sherlock to delete him. And despite what John claimed about the human mind and the ways in which memory worked, he was sure that, by now, John had certainly deleted him.

He'd done without friends for years, so Sherlock knew it was possible. It just wasn't what he wanted anymore. But since when had what Sherlock wanted mattered to anyone but Sherlock?

It was early, not even dawn, when he returned to Baker Street. He'd had every intention of climbing those seventeen familiar stairs to his flat. He was almost surprised to find himself in Molly's lounge, instead.

He caught Molly dozing, still dressed, on the sofa. "Oh, hello," she said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "How'd it go, then? Work it all out?"

He had planned to lie, had planned and plotted it to the last syllable, the last inflection. But it was half past four in the morning and he had woken her and she was bright and smiling, expecting him to bowl her over with his brilliance, and when she looked at him with those guileless eyes of hers, he found he could not do it. Instead, he pressed his mouth into a thin line to ensure no words escaped.

"No?" she asked. "S'all right. You can't solve every mystery." She yawned and stretched, the hem of her blouse riding up, exposing perhaps a quarter of an inch of bare skin. His mouth watered at the sight. "Hungry?"

He closed his eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Did it again. And again.

"Um, I - I could make you something," she offered, sounding concerned, then, and a bit desperate.

The thought of food, any food, sickened him, but he couldn't explain why, not even to himself.

He shook his head. Inhaled. Exhaled.

"Sherlock, are -?"

"Where's Edmund?" he asked, because he wanted to see his son. It was an ungovernable feeling, one he could not twist into calmness; the urge to know the boy was whole, wasn't hooked up to tubes and machines, hadn't been reduced to a pile of cold, grey, forgotten ash.

"He's - he's in his cot," Molly said, uneasily. "Why?"

Sherlock could not answer, could only walk past her to the nursery.

"Sherlock? What - ?"

He held up a hand, staying her. "I won't - I won't hurt him," he said.

Molly's brow wrinkled. "Of course you won't," she said with forced lightness, as if such a thought had never occurred. "I'm - I'm making tea, then." She headed for the kitchen.

In the darkened bedroom, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but they did, and he counted Edmund's breaths, watched his little chest rise and fall, each one feeling like a personal favour.

He counted five hundred and thirty seven before he turned back to the lounge.

Molly was on the sofa, two cups of cooling tea on the coffee table before her. Her head was down and her shoulders were hunched and her hands wrung each other, body language any human behavioural scientists would describe as "apprehensive". Apprehensive: 14th century, from the Middle Latin - to be fearful of or have anxiety about the future.

Molly was apprehensive. Molly was so clever.

He looked up. The ceiling plaster was as asymmetrical as it had ever been.

"Sherlock?" Molly said.

The curve of the arcs in the plaster was uneven, and he was having difficulty averaging them. He was going to have to look over the entire lounge before he got a number he was comfortable with.

"Sherlock?" she said again.

He looked at her as briefly as possible. It felt as though the sight of her burned some part of his brain.

Molly stood and took a deep breath, fumbling with something in her trouser pocket. "Your phone - your phone was off and I - I found another chip in that girl, Sherlock, and I've given it to Mycroft and I know I should have told the police because I'm supposed to turn evidence over, all evidence, and I could lose my license, I told you that, but for you, and John, and Sarah, and, and, oh God, Sherlock, are you all right?"

There were so many things he would have said to her if he knew how. There were an equal number of things he knew he should not say to her, should never say to her, but he could not tell one from the other. So he said nothing.

Without quite knowing what he was doing, he began unbuttoning his shirt.

One button.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

"Six." Molly's voice surprised him. He raised his eyes to meet hers.

"Seven," she whispered as his shirt fell open.

He would have thanked her, but the risk of speaking was too dire. Instead, he reached out and slipped the first button of her blouse out of its hole.

"Eight," she said. "Or - or should I start over?"

He shook his head.

"Nine," she said, as he opened her shirt further. He could see gooseflesh rising on the skin he exposed. "Ten."

He paused at the next button, waiting for corresponding number.

"'Leven."

Despite her brassiere, despite the shirt over that, he could see her nipples harden.

"Twelve," she said breathily. "Thirteen."

He looked at her face for a moment, the urge to kiss her rising.

"Fourteen," she said as he opened the last button and his hands brushing her belly, still a bit soft from Edmund. Before, he would have found it unnerving, unattractive. He could not explain it, had no words for it, but there was something he understood now that he had not known before. Before. As it was, he wished only to press his face against her.

And he did. He knelt and pressed his face against the soft skin below her navel. He could cease to exist, he thought, if he gave in to the tide that pulled him, the desire to pour himself out onto her was so strong.

He did not want to think about exactly what he felt, or why he felt it; it was messy and sordid and weak, and her fingers sifting through his hair were gentle. He would rather think of anything but his numerous personal shortcomings at the moment.

He wanted her so badly his gut ached with it. He wanted her, wanted to be annihilated by her kindness. He pulled her to the floor, not bothering to ask. He pushed the trousers off her hips and her knickers along with them. He pulled the elastic from her plait and the pins that held her hair out of her eyes, one by one. His sense of rightness compelled him to remove her brassiere. And then, and then, - oh, she was as naked as he felt.

He watched, fascinated, as her heart beat in the hollow of her throat. Touched it with his fingertips. Tasted it with his mouth. There was a mole on the side of her neck. He sucked it on his way to her jaw, her earlobe, and finally, unable to help himself, he nipped his way to her mouth.

He didn't want to hurt her. He was careful, so careful, as careful as he had it in him to be. He only wanted to taste her. He only wanted to eat her up. He only wanted to suck her sweet breasts the way he had once, but would not do again because it was weak of him.

He was weak. And a failure. He could not risk putting words to it, to any of it, even in his own mind. He did not want to know all the nooks and crannies of his inadequacy, much less disillusion Mary Magdalene Hooper with them. He wanted, instead, to throw himself at her feet. She alone had mercy for him, but it was a dangerous thing to push too far.

Unfortunately, as always, too far was exactly where he wanted to go.

It was good of her to take his face in her hands. Even better of her to suck his lower lip into her mouth.

For a moment, she seemed to be struggling against him.

"What?" he said dumbly, and wondered vaguely if this was how other people felt every waking moment, this longing, this confusion.

"Bed," she muttered between kisses. "Please. It'll be better on the bed, I promise. Please."

Before he could think to stop himself, his weakness answered for him. "No, no," he said, and held her tighter.

"Shhhhh," she said her palm to his cheek. "Okay. It's okay, whatever's wrong, Sherlock, I love you, and it's okay."

Why did she have to use that word, that horrible, merciless word? It hurt him at every turn, like a rusted knife to the gut; like hope. The two were sisters in treachery.

Molly did not love him, Molly could not love him; he was not lovable. It had been tested and proven true. Molly could not love him, because if she did love him, if, at this particular moment in time, what she felt for him was truly love, there was always the danger that she might stop. No; there was only the inevitability that she would.

"Please," she said. She laced her little fingers with his. "Please," and she tugged him toward her room.

She didn't bother with the light.

He'd never had sex with Molly in the dark before. It made his intentions seem even more illicit, and perhaps that was only fitting. In the dark, she stripped him naked. In the dark, his craven lusts were bolder. In the dark, he was no longer ashamed to trace the marks left under her breasts by the wire of her brassiere with his mouth. In the dark, there was nothing he wouldn't dare, nothing she wouldn't allow.

His mouth found her breasts sweet and weeping fresh milk. His skin prickled and his belly churned with shame, even as his erection pressed hot against her leg, pleading for entry, demanding it. He was selfish and perverse and how he wanted her, all of her, her body and her mercy and her indulgence.

Her arms wrapped round him, her legs twining and untwining with his. He was relieved when she pulled him by the hair, pulled his face to hers, pulled his hips to the cradle of her thighs, every bit as sweet as her breasts. Sweeter, even, as his penis pressed between her labia and she slid up and down his length, hot and slick. Sweeter still when he slipped inside her.

He had been such a fool. Tonight he fully understood what he had done that day in Mycroft's bed. And, though there was no way he could find the words, much less say them, he wanted Molly to forgive him.

_If I'd known,_ he thought, _I never would have taken it so lightly._

He would have to tell her without words. He pushed himself in to the hilt, arched his back until his public bone struck her clitoris and he could feel the tremor it sent through her.

He inhaled deeply. The scent of arousal was strong, but so was the smell that had been absent since Molly took leave from work: the mélange of mortuary aromas, chemical and human, clung to her still. He sucked at her mouth, thrusting deep inside her for all he was worth. He refused to think of the incinerator full of ash behind the warehouse in Birmingham. He refused to think of the tiny bone he found there in a cold spot near the uninsulated door; a femur smaller than his smallest finger. He refused.

He thrust harder.

He wanted only to stop thinking, to feel her mouth like ripe fruit, her soft skin like a princess in a child's story, and her sex, clingy and wet and like nothing else.

Trust Molly to know what he needed. Trust Molly to give it to him. Like a thoughtless schoolboy marking iS.H. was here/I on the underside of his desk, he had carved his initials in her uterus, marked her. And yet, she gave him relief, comfort. It was both wonderful and terrible.

She rolled him onto his back when he paused, too lost in his own mind to go on, to know what to do next, and she took him. He gazed up at her in wonder, his hands on her breasts as she slid him back inside her. For some time, he knew nothing and cared for nothing and nothing hurt him and an ecstasy that was both full to overflowing and strangely empty welled up in him.

Then peace, like a simple melody played by a single instrument, lulled him to sleep.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Three hours later, Sherlock awoke to two utterly conflicting sensations.

The rich scent of the night's physical congress filled his nostrils, and Molly's body, warm and silky, overwhelmed his sense of touch. Somehow, his arms had wrapped themselves round her in the night, holding her close. His erection was adamant that it hadn't had quite enough of Molly yet and would, if given free rein, drown once more in the ocean of senses she had to offer. Most of his limbic system agreed.

On the other end of the scale, something else, something deep in his lizard brain, was panicking. Lights were flashing, and his heart was pounding, and he had no clear idea why.

Oh, he was naked. It was a hard and fast rule: Sherlock Holmes never slept naked.

For roughly three seconds, he struggled to sort out the difference between the sensations of fear and desire.

In short order, he assessed the situation. His leg between Molly's. His hand on her abdomen. He was suddenly intimately aware of the remnants of unprotected sexual intercourse on his penis, thighs, Molly's sheets.

His stomach turned.

He didn't want to imagine Molly's hard-set jaw and cold reproach once she realised what he'd done. He didn't want to, but he did, just the same. Not that he had anything to apologise for; she was every bit as culpable as he.

That didn't mean he wanted to face her in the cold light of morning, though.

And so he rose as cautiously and as stealthily as he would have had Molly been in possession of a gun. He dressed in absolute silence.

Soundlessly, he took the fifteen steps to his sleeping child's room. Edmund lay sprawled on his back, arms above his head, eyes still. No dreams, then, good or bad. He kissed the boy's cheek without quite making contact.

He slipped on his shoes at the door. He did not turn back to look at Molly. It did not matter how insistently the desire itched at him, he refused to give in. He had transgressed. He had embarrassed himself, as well as Molly, in the madness that had overtaken him in the night. He had been weak and desperate and unthinking. He had committed a wrong against her. And, as he had been reliably informed, to harm the mother was to harm the child.

That was the last, the very last, thing he wanted. To hurt either of them. Stupid. Stupid. So stupid.

But things were becoming clearer, now. He could fix this. He was clever enough to correct his mistakes. With Molly and Edmund. With John. All of them.

All he needed was a plan. And all he needed to formulate that plan was time and space, before he compounded one error with another.

He was not his father. He would return. And he would set it all to rights.

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End 3/3

******* Coming (very ) Soon - Sustain III: Obbligato *******


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